Drafts concerning Solomon's Temple and the sacred cubit

So far we have described the temple from Josephus and Philo, who since they had seen the place, remembered its form distinctly, as well as the arrangement of the parts with each other. The writings of the Talmudists are consistent with Josephus and Philo, but since they were writing on the basis of the tradition of their ancestors and not from a mental image of what they had seen, they gave a less precise description. On the other hand they gave the measurements in their own special cubits which they had learned from their tradition, whereas Josephus expresses the same measurements in foreign cubits and often gives whole numbers instead of fractions and the nearest round number instead of the exact number, and he seems to have supplied by conjecture numbers which he did not know exactly.

From all these writers a certain general Image of the shape of the sanctuary can be formed, and it will eventually be rendered more precise when I have added the exact measurements of each of its features. But since Josephus in cubits

For the Talmudists are speaking to the Jews and Josephus is speaking to the Gentiles

The dimensions of the women's court agree with these measurements of the widths. The small corner courts which correspond to the small courts in the corners of the great court ought to agree with them in length and breadth. Let their width therefore be 30c, 112c for the outer wall, 1c for the inner wall; their total width of 3212 cubits, added on either side the women's court, will make a breadth of 200 cubits exactly as in the higher court. Thus therefore the width of the Sanctuary will be 135c in all within the buildings: 135cub, 200cub in all within the intramural space, 220c in all within the Chajil wall, and 232 cub. inclusive of that wall. This accord, I think, confirms the dimensions of the widths rather satisfactorily.

Similarly also the women's court at 135 cub. wide plus the two small courts on either side at 30 cubits wide plus the outer wall at 212 cubits wide will make a total width of 200 cubits within the intramural space, exactly as in the upper court. By such agreement in the calculation, they mutually confirm each other.

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Hence it is clear that the Talmudists are much mistaken when they write that the women's court was 135 cubits square. In that measurement we must also include the court of Israel and the space for the entrance of the priests together with the west wall of the women's court. Otherwise 46 cubits will have to be added on the east, but the great court will not allow for that as well as for the further area of the lattice-work enclosure.

We have therefore the dimensions of this sanctuary.

Under the buildings just described wells, bathrooms and various cellars had been excavated, just as underneath the cloisters[Editorial Note 1] on the north side were the room of the salt in which they stored the salt for the offerings, the room of Hipparva[Editorial Note 2] in which they treated the skins of the victims with salt, and the Room of the Washers[Editorial Note 3] where they washed the intestines of the victims. These were cellars because the roof of the Hipparva is described as level with the ground of the court and from the room of the washers a spiral staircase rose into the roof of the Hipparva. But leaving aside these and similar things, let us see what purposes the upper parts served. In the chamber of cut stone[Editorial Note 4] sat the great Sanhedrin.

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He proceeded as far as the second small door in the door frame of the temple through which he went into the space between the outer and the inner leaves and unbarred them. In the same thickness of the wall there was access to the spiral staircase in the corner of the temple from which a third small door led into the lowest chambers, a fourth into the middle chambers, and a fifth into the highest chambers. For the Talmudists describe five doors in the north east corner of the temple. And from there on each of the floors there was access from the first chamber into the second through the door in the party-wall and similarly from the second into the rest successively round the whole circuit. And this is more or less the account that the Talmudists give.

In order to complete our description of this temple, we must compare the measurements of Josephus and those of the Talmudists. There is no space to argue about these at length[Editorial Note 5].

So too when Josephus[Editorial Note 6] gives the internal width of the porch as 20 cub and its length as 40 cub, I would write 1313 and 2623. And when he gives the width for the door of the porch as 25 (perhaps more correctly 35) and the height as 70 cub, I would write 1623 or 2323 and 4623. For in this way Josephus will be pretty much reconciled with the Talmudists, who give the width of the porch as 11 cub, and the width of the door as 20 cub. and the height as 40 cub.[Editorial Note 7] The Talmudists retain the precise measurements learned by tradition in their own special cubits. Josephus, while changing those measurements into a different kind of cubit, gives whole numbers and round numbers instead of accurate numbers. And when he was ignorant of the exact numbers of cubits, he seems to have assigned approximate numbers from the mental image of the building which he had formerly seen. He is speaking approximately. This is how it comes about that when his cubits are reduced to sacred cubits, they do not always agree with the Talmudists. Thus the Talmudists therefore either completely

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The aisle between the columns of the eastern cloister has to be reduced in the same ratio. Furthermore[Editorial Note 8] the Talmudists define the dimensions of the temple with regard to length as follows. The back wall of the porch 5 cub, the Porch 11 cub. The back wall of the temple 6 cub, the holy place 40 cub, the Veil 1 cub, the Shrine 20c, the Wall of the Shrine 6 cub. the Chamber 6 cub, the wall of the chamber 5 cub. Total: 100 cub. [Thus from a the centre of the altar to the Veil there will be 100 cubits and to the back wall of the temple 54 cub. Hence the whole temple apart from the porch, which was not in the Tabernacle at all, stood in the separate place, provided that the western part of the inner court is assigned to that place, a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits wide, twice the Mosaic dimensions.] And the width they calculate as follows. The wall of the rain pool (impluvium) 5 cub, the rain pool 3 cub. The wall of the chamber 5 cub., the chamber 6 cub. The wall of the temple 6 cub. From there to the middle of the temple 10 cub. Total: 35 cub; double this, and it makes a total width of 70 cub. But I don't see at all why the wall for preventing the rainwater from flowing away should be made so thick. I would prefer to make it a slim parapet two cubits wide and two cubits high, and to increase the breadth of the chambers by the remaining three cubits of the width. For thus the total width of the temple together with the chambers will be 60 cubits altogether, as Josephus and Ezra chapter [Editorial Note 9] assert. The Talmudists say that there are 38 chambers around the temple, namely fifteen on one side and 15 on the other, i.e, five on each floor, and on the west three on the lowest floor three on the middle floor and two on the top floor. From the court there was an ascent to the Porch by twelve steps. The doorway of the porch was 20 cubits wide, 40 high. The doorway of the temple was 10 wide, 20 high, and it had four doors, two within and two without. The outer doors opened into the Porch, so as to cover the width of the wall, the interior ones within the temple. At the sides of the porch were two small doors, one on either side. Anyone who wanted to open the doors of the temple entered by the northern one, and from there into the middle ... of the wall

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And since the Temple within [sixty cubits in height] [Editorial Note 10]was divided into two stories[Editorial Note 11] [by the construction of an upper room above] only the first hall [I understand this as the Porch] was open to its full, uninterrupted height, and it rose ninety cubits high, while it was fifty[Editorial Note 12]cubits long [inside] and twenty cubits across[Editorial Note 13]. — And around the sides of the lower part of the temple [rising as far as the dividing floor [Editorial Note 14]] were numerous communicating rooms in three stories, one above the other, and entrances to them were available on either side [of the temple] from the gate [of the temple, α[1] in its door-frame, between the doors which were hung on both sides of the wall. Thence the middle of the wall which was six cubits wide, there was access to the spiral staircase in the corner of the temple which led up to the upper rooms and from the spiral staircase the temple was perambulated through the middle of the rooms which were accessible to each other by doors.] The upper part did not have the same chambers, and was that much narrower, but was forty cubits higher and not so ornate as the lower one. A total height of a hundred cubits is reached by adding the sixty cubits from the ground.[Editorial Note 15] — The altar in front of the temple, fifteen cubits high [from the beginning] and ... wide and long was topped ... by corners,[Editorial Note 16]and the ascent from the south sloped up moderately [Editorial Note 17]It had been constructed without iron, and no iron had ever touched it. And the temple and the altar were surrounded by a graceful parapet of very fine stone which was a cubit high, and separated the people [on the east] from the priests. People with gonorrhoea, that is, discharging seed, and lepers were banned from the city altogether, and it[Editorial Note 18]was closed to menstruating women. And even women who were ritually clean were not permitted to pass the boundary mentioned above [of the segregating wall] Men who were not in every way clean were excluded from the inner court [which began at the second eastern {gate}], and those who were pure were kept away from the priests [by that intervening parapet] [Editorial Note 19]. So Josephus, and β[2] elsewhere he repeats these final <2r> sentences [Editorial Note 20]. The temple had four cloisters [or courts furnished with cloisters] all around and each one of these had its own legal restriction. All people, including foreigners, had the freedom to enter the outer court [hence called the Court of the gentiles]; only menstruating women were forbidden to enter it. All Jewish men entered the second cloister [that is what he calls the raised area (podium) [Editorial Note 21], which was constructed in the fashion of a cloister] and also their wives when they were free of all pollution. Into the third entered Jewish males who were clean and purified. And into the fourth priests clothed in their priestly vestments. But into the inner shrine only the High Priests.

The Talmudists write things that agree well enough with all this. γ[3] They say that the great Court (which they call the Mount of the house) was a square five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits broad on the outside and furnished with a cloister in front of a cloister, i.e., surrounded by a double cloister; and the inner courts were surrounded first with a latticework wall, two common Jewish cubits high, which they call סורג Soreg, and then with a solid inner wall named חיל, Chajil, whose height was ten cubits on the eastern side and greater than that on the other sides, and then with an intermural space ten cubits wide, and at the inmost point [Editorial Note 23] with the structures of the gates and the chambers. The Talmudists confuse the two eastern gates with each other, describing only one and ascribing to it the features of both. On the south side they describe three gates [Editorial Note 24], proceeding from the west, the gate of flaming, the gate of the offerings and the gate of waters, and likewise three gates on the north side, the house of fire, the gate of the offerings and the gate of projection. R. Iose adds two more westerly gates, one on the south side, called the upper gate, and one on the north side called the gate of Jeconiah. The Talmudists also specify six Rooms (Conclavia) in the inner court. They are each to be placed between two gates, and two more are to be added outside on the west, as was the case for the gates. For from Josephus[4] we understand that two chambers stood in the corners of the court on the west side. The gate of projection had an upper room above it, and the priests kept their watch. above and the Levites below, where there was a door for them opening towards the wall Chajil. So too the House of flaming was large and divided into rooms [Editorial Note 25]; it had four rooms below: two in the holy place, i.e., opposite the cloisters which were open to the inner court, and two in profane space, that is, on the outside opposite[Editorial Note 26] the tre <3r> asure chambers which were shut off from the court, and for that reason were set outside the court, i.e., in a comparatively profane area. And these two rooms opened onto a profane place, i.e., onto the intermural space. Similarly the chamber which was called the chamber of squared Stone was set partly in a sacred place, i.e., above the cloister, and partly in a profane place, i.e., above a treasure chamber, and opened onto a profane place or the intermural space, and was very grand and spacious, for the great Sanhedrin of the seventy elders held their sittings in it. Imagine that the other gates and chambers were like those that have been described, so that the court was uniform. But in the eastern gate there were only two rooms below, the room of Phinehas, Guardian of the Wardrobe, [Editorial Note 27] on the right of the gate, and the room for those who cook the sartagines on the left side. Hence it is inferred that this side of the court, being narrower, had no treasure chambers. In the corners of the women's court outside there were four little courts each forty cubits long instead of chambers. No doubt Zerubbabel had constructed them in place of the courts which had been in the corners of the great court. The walls of this court were smooth [Editorial Note 28] and plane, and instead of a cloister there was a raised platform (podium) attached to it all round, so that the women could view the worship from above, while the men were below. Under the court of Israel were rooms which opened onto the women's court. In them the Levites stored their lyres, harps, cymbals and other musical instruments. On the east there was an ascent by twelve steps from the great court to the women's court, and from that court by fifteen semi-circular steps to the court of Israel, which was 135 sacred cubits long and eleven wide. This court was divided from the priests' court by an ascent of one cubit, from which the Talmudists conjecture that the court of Israel was higher, despite the fact that this <4r> ascent was Josephus' Parapet one cubit high, separating areas of equal height. In any case the court of Israel was the actual eastern margin of the priests' Court. On the northern margin between the parapet and the gate of offering [Editorial Note 29], directly opposite the altar, was the butchery where the sacrificial victims, suspended from eight pillars, were stripped of their skins, and the flesh was set out on the same number of tables and washed. The sacrificial victims were brought in to be slaughtered through the gate of offering on the north side of the altar inside the parapet. At that point twenty four rings were set into the pavement in six rows to which they tied the victims to be slaughtered. There were four cubits between the rings and the tables, and it is clear that the parapet went through that space because ✝[5] the rabbis put the case of someone standing outside the innermost court and stretching his hand inside and either killing a sacrificial victim or scooping up the blood of a victim already slaughtered; also of a beast about to be slaughtered putting a foot outside the court. From this it is clear also that there was an opening in the parapet at this point, because it was also necessary for slaughtered victims to be carried out promptly to the Butchery. But the mouth of the gate ought to correspond to the opening in the Parapet, and therefore the gate stood directly opposite the altar. Through the gate of Offering opposite, which was also called the gate of the First-offerings, the first-offerings of the animals were brought in to be slaughtered on the southern side of the altar. And the Talmudists give a width for the court of 135 sacred cubits between these gates, and this is how they calculate it. The ascent of the altar, 30 cubits. The width of the altar, 32 cub. Between the altar and the area of the rings, 8 cub. The area of the rings, 24 cub. From there to the tables, 4 cub. From the tables to the pillars, 4 cubits. From the pillars to the wall of the court, 8 cubits. The remaining 29 cubits are partly the space occupied by the pillars, partly the space between the ascent of the altar and the southern wall of the court. These ✝[6] the more recent Rabbis <5r> divide into two. But I would divide it so that the altar stands in the middle of the court; and this will be the case if twenty and a half cubits are assigned to the distance between the ascent of the altar and the wall, and the remaining four and a half to the pillars. Furthermore, of these four and a half cubits I would assign one and a half to the width of the tables (Ezek. 40 {)}[Editorial Note 30] and the remaining three to the bases of the pillars. For the tables being set out in a straight line, an equal number of pillars, also set in a straight line, were ranged opposite them, corresponding one to one, and thus their width did not occupy more space than in proportion to the base of one pillar. Therefore the centre of the altar set in the middle was 6712 cubits away from the walls of the gates, and about 50 cubits from the parapet, and therefore the court within the parapet was a hundred cubits wide, exactly as ✝[7] Hecataeus affirms [Editorial Note 31], and thus twice the size of the court of the Mosaic tabernacle, and the margins of the court on both sides were 1712 cubits. The breadth of the buildings between the margins and the intermural space, I calculate as follows. The bases of the pillars of the cloister 323 cub, The inner width of the cloister twice the width of the bases. One wall with the half-columns 323 cub. The inner width of the Treasure houses 712 cub and the place of the steps leading to the upper arts 8 cub. The outer wall 212 cub. The total 3212 cub. Double this and add it to the 135 cubits, and the result is a width of two hundred cubits including the buildings. Think of the outer width of the women's court as the same including the corner courts. Add an intermural space of ten cubits on both sides, and the total width of the sanctuary within the wall Chajil will come out as 220 cubits.

The Talmudists give the length of the court as 187 cubits, and they calculate it from the parapet to the western wall as follows. Between the court of Israel and the altar of the priests not on duty was eleven cubits. The altar 32 cub. Between the altar and the temple porch it was 22 cub. The temple was 100 cub. Between the temple and the western wall of the court was 11 cub. They calculate the length of the temple as follows. The wall of the porch 5 cub. The interior width <6r> of the Porch 11 cub. The wall of the temple 6 cub. The holy place 40 cub. The veil 1 cub. The holy of holies 20 cub. The wall 6 cub. Chamber 6 cub. Wall of the chamber 5 cub. Add to all these the court of Israel 11cub., and the total will come out as 187 cub. Here from the centre of the altar to the western end of the court there are 149 cubi, virtually double the Mosaic {dimension}. But in the other direction from the centre of the altar as far as the one-cubit parapet on the east, where by doubling the Mosaic dimension, there should be 50 cubits, there are only 27; this is because they shortened that court {of the temple} on the eastern side so that more space might be left for the women's court. That is also why there were no treasure chambers there, and they made the margin of the court there more than a third smaller than on the other sides. Let us also say that the aisle of the cloister between the pillars and the wall inset with pillars is reduced in about the same proportion, then the width of the aisle will be 412 cubits, that of the wall about six or seven palms approximately [Editorial Note 32] and that of the whole cloister eleven cubits, which together with the rest of the length of the court makes 198 cubits. Add the western wall of two cubits and the total length will come out at two hundred cubits. Thus therefore in the whole court including the buildings, the Jews retained twice the Mosaic dimension for the length which must have existed within the parapet. For in this way, with the length being equal to the breadth, the sanctuary will be a square. Add the intermural space on both sides and the total length within the wall Chajil will come to 220 cubits, i.e., equal to the width within the same wall, and thus the total area within that wall will be square, and the sanctuary will be surrounded by an intermural space ten cubits wide, so that its square shape would be made perceptible, and indeed obvious, to people as they walked around it. And Josephus clearly confirms that this was the case when he asserts that the sanctuary above was a square and surrounded by its own wall. For he means not the whole sanctuary including the <7r> court of the women, as Capellus [Editorial Note 33] suggested, but the upper level of the sanctuary to which one ascended by 15 steps from the court of the women, and which was called the sanctuary in the proper sense. His words τετραγὼνον δὲ ἄνω square above, very clearly indicates an upper level. Furthermore, the shape of the gates and of the chambers on the sides, which is like that, show that the dimensions of the sanctuary as far as its length is concerned are here correctly given.

It is clear from Josephus that the openings in the latticework barrier and therefore the gates corresponding to them, were at equal intervals from each other, and each of the chambers was situated between two gates at a distance of thirty gentile cubits, i.e. about twenty sacred cubits. In converting from sacred to gentile cubits, Josephus often uses the nearest round numbers. Instead of twenty I would write here twenty two. For the two pillars on which each of the chambers rested cannot be contained in a smaller space. Both Josephus and the Talmudists agree that their circumference was eight cubits. Hence the diameter of the shaft is 2611 cubits. Taken in the proportion of three to two to this diameter, the width of the base will be 3911 cubits or about 23 palms. Let it be just 22 palms. The intervals of the bases from each other should not be smaller than the bases. [If Philo in comparing the perimeters of the two courts had not described the perimeter of this court as meaner than the other and displaying more austerity in its design, I would not have allowed that the pillars were so crowded together.] But let the intervals between the bases be equal to the bases] let them be equal to them (for that is the simplest proportion), and two pillars, with an equal number of half-pillars and three intercolumniations, will occupy a space of 22 cubits to be assigned to each chamber between any two gates. And I would make the gate equal to the chamber apart from the door. For in this way all things will agree very nicely with each other. [Editorial Note 34] The two gates of offering with a width of 32 cubits will exactly correspond to the altar in the middle. The two nearest chambers towards <8r> the west with their width of twenty two cubits will correspond to the space of the same width between the altar and the Porch of the temple. The two gates of fire and the two following chambers and the furthest gates will occupy a space in total of 86 cubits directly opposite the porch and the temple as it rises above the side chambers. And the two furthest chambers with their western walls three cubits thick will fill the remaining space of 23 cubits as far as the western wall of the court. And the two furthest chambers on the east with a width of 22 cub. will correspond to the space of the same width between the altar and the eastern cloister. And the western flanks of the two furthest gates will accommodate the eastern cloister with their width of 11 cubits, and the doors will lead into the intervening intermural space of the same width. For the doors of all the gates, according to the Talmudists, were 10 cubits wide and 20 high.[And the two eastern flanks will cover the eastern wall of the intermural space and will project beyond into the court of the women. Hence the Talmudists name one of these gates the gate of projection. Rabbi Jose calls it the gate of the Singers. Evidently the Levites used to sing in two places – one was above the fifteen steps, i.e., in the intermural space directly opposite this gate, the other was on the raised platform beside the one-cubit parapet inside between the court of Israel and the altar. Both men and women entered the court of the women through these two gates, and therefore their doors did not lead into the inner court. However these gates stood with the other seven on the perimeter of the inner court because Josephus distinguishes the bronze gate in the women's court from the other nine silver gates calling it the gate ἔξω της νεως outside the temple, i.e., outside the inner sanctuary. By these details the position which we assigned to the gates is clearly confirmed.

Furthermore as the inner court is extended by the addition of the women's court, <9r> so the row of chambers and gates is extended on both sides by the addition in a straight line of two open chambers or small courts on one side and two on the other, and the extended intermural space surrounds them all. We understand this from the Talmudists who say that each small court was 40 cubits long, and that they stood in each of the corners of the women's court. Hence the eastern flanks of the projecting gates have to be set back from from (retrahendae) the western corners. If they continue outside beyond the intermural space and if inside they give way to the small courts, the interior aspect will be more pleasing, and the total length from the eastern cloister as far as the eastern wall of the women's court will be as follows. The intermural space 10 cub. Its wall 2 cub. The small court 40 cub. Its wall 112cub. The walkway between the small courts 5 cub. The wall of the further small court 112. That small court 40 cub. Total 100 cub. Add the inner sanctuary, and the total length will be 300 cub. Add the eastern wall of the women's court 2 cub and the intermural space on both sides, and the total length within the wall Chajil will be 322 cubits. I would say that this wall was the thickest one both because it was the outermost wall and held the great doors of the gatehouses within it, and because the Romans, as Josephus tells us [Editorial Note 35], pounded it non-stop for a whole week with the most powerful of all battering rams, before which city walls were accustomed to fall without any difficulty, and yet they got nowhere at all. Let it emulate the external wall of the temple of Ezekiel, ch. 40.5 with a thickness of six cubits, and the total length of the sanctuary will be 334 cubits, its width 232 cubits. Subtract the internal width of 135 cub, and the length of the gate will be a half of what remains, 4812. If you add to this the ornaments on the façade, it will easily come to that length of 50 cubits which Ezekiel assigned to the gates. Conceive that the intermural space passes through the middle of <9ar> {all} the gates with transverse doors ten cubits wide and twenty cubits high. On this basis the lengths of the gates, chambers, the separate place and the women's court will be approximately in the proportion of 3:2 (in proportione sesqialtera) to their widths. These dimensions for the gates are 4812 and 32 cub, for the chambers 22 and 3212 cub, for the separated place behind the porch 135 and 90 cub, and for the women's court 135 and 88 cub. Simplicity of proportions was very much sought in sacred structures. The Talmudists insist that the women's court was square. On this assumption 47 cubits need to be added on the east. But the great court will not accommodate such a large size together with the distance to the lattice work barrier and beyond, and the length of the whole sanctuary which we gave above as 334 cubits is plainly established by two arguments. One is that ✝[8] Hecataeus [Editorial Note 36] around the time of Alexander the great wrote that the stone perimeter of the temple was about five plethri[Editorial Note 37] long. In the same passage Hecataeus puts the width of the sanctuary at one hundred cubits, i.e., inside the parapet. These are sacred cubits, and therefore Hecataeus, a Gentile who lived in Egypt, took his dimensions from the Jews in sacred cubits and did not know how to convert them to the cubits of the Greeks for whom he was writing. When therefore he heard cubits, he thought of common cubits, and for simplicity of expression he put plethri. If we correct the cubits, the length of the stone perimeter will be 33313 cubits or, as a whole number, 334 cubits, as above. The other argument is that the Altar has to stand in the middle of the whole sanctuary. For it stood of old in the middle of the great court, and the Jews would not readily have changed its position. Also the inner sanctuary must have stood in the middle of the great court, and its eastern and western edges should be equidistant <10r> from the court's sides. Any other position would be irregular and it would be unseemly that its gates should directly face its gates of offering. The altar stands therefore in the common centre. And so it is in our description. The altar stands in the middle both of the inner court, which terminates on one side at the porch of the temple and on the other at the eastern cloister, and of the whole inner sanctuary, being 161 cubits distant from the outer wall Chajil on both sides, and therefore also in the middle of the great court. The women's court therefore cannot be increased by one cubit without destroying this concentricity.

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Interior width 11 cub. Wall of the temple six cub. The holy place 40 cub. The Veil 1 cub. The holy of holies 20 cub. The wall six cub. The chamber 6 cub. The wall of the chamber 5 cub.

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Both women and men came through these two gates into the women's court, and therefore their doors did not lead into the inner court, but these gates stood on the perimeter of the inner court because Josephus distinguishes the tenth gate from the other nine by calling it the gate ἐξω της νεως the gate outside the temple, i.e, outside the inner sanctuary. Therefore only this tenth gate stood outside the upper sanctuary. And by these details the position

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30 cubits for the widths of the small courts including their own wall towards the women's court. From the gate of projection and similarly from the gate of waters let us give 40 cubits for the length of the small court including its wall on the east. Let the thickness of the wall be one cubit, and the length of the small court will be 39 cubits excluding the wall. Let another court of the same length adjoin it, and the total length between the gate of projection and the eastern wall of the women's court will be 79 cubits. Add the eastern flank of that gate and the door and the total length will be 200 cub. This is the length of the women's court including the inner intermural space. Add the upper sanctuary and the total length will be 300 cubits. Add the eastern wall of the women's court, say two cubits, and the total length of the sanctuary within the intermural space will be 302 cubits. Add the intermural space on both sides, and the total length within the wall Chajil will be 322 cubits. I would say that this wall was very thick both because it was the outermost wall and held the doors of the gatehouses within it, and because the Romans, as Josephus [Editorial Note 38] tells us, pounded this wall non-stop for a whole week with the most powerful of all battering rams to which city walls were accustomed to succumb without difficulty and got nowhere at all. Let the thickness of it therefore be six cubits on the model of the outermost wall in the temple of Ezekiel chapter 4 [Editorial Note 39], and the whole external length of the sanctuary will be 334 cubits. This is confirmed by two arguments. One is that Hecataeus, a Gentile quoted by Josephus, writes that the length ...

... perhaps of two cubits, and the total length of the court will come to two hundred cubits. Thus therefore the Jews retained between the outer walls the Dimension of two hundred cubits which they were obliged to retain within the parapet. Add the eastern cloister of 11 cub, and the further intermural space of 10 cub., and the total length within the wall Chajil will be 221 cubits, i.e., about five plethri, as ✝[9] Hecataeus affirms. For five plethri are 333 cubits. And the Jews, from whom the gentile Hecataeus had learned the dimension, expressed an Attic Cubit in round numbers by two thirds of a sacred cubit, as will soon be clear from Josephus. And thus those 333 cubits are 222 sacred cubits. Thus in the length and breadth of the court within the wall Chajil the sanctuary is mutually equal with itself (for a difference of one cubit is negligible)

<12r> < insertion from the right margin >

Hence the eastern flanks of the outermost gates have to be set back (retrahendae) from the western corners. If they continue outside beyond the intermural space and if on the interior they allow room for the small courts, the aspect will be pleasing all round and the total length from the east. cloister to the eastern wall of the women's court will be as follows. Int space 10c. Wall 2c. Small court 40c. Wall of court 112c. Walkw. 5c. w. 112. Court 40. Total 100c. Add the inner sanct., and the total length will be 300c.

< text from f 12r resumes >

From the total of 187 cubits, 11 are missing. Recent writers add the court of Israel. But a minuscule internal width for the Porch of 11 cubits fits badly with its great length and height, and perhaps was taken from a misunderstanding of Ezekiel 40.49. If with Josephus who had seen the place, we say that the width was 20 cubits and define its wall as six cubits wide all round, and if besides we add a cubit to the length of the temple (by increasing the width of the Veil, if you like, Ezekiel 41.3), so that the total length of the porch and temple apart from the chambers on the west, is 100 cubits, we will have reached the 187 cubit length of the court. But there are 13 cubits missing from double the Mosaic dimension; this is because the Jews shortened that court on the eastern side in order to leave more space for the court of the women. This is also the reason why there were no treasure chambers there, and the margin of the court there is a third less than on the other sides. Let us also posit that the cloister is reduced in about the same proportion, so that the whole width of it is 11 cub. Accept too that the measurement of 187 cubits is the length of the courtyard which is terminated on both sides by the parapet. Add the Priests' court of 11 cubits on the east and a passage on the west between the parapet and the external wall ... gate ... the sanctuary <13r> Was square above, as Josephus asserted. For he means not the whole sanctuary including the women's court, as Capellus suggested, but the upper level of the sanctuary to which one ascended from the women's court by 15 steps, and which was the sanctuary strictly so-called. Thus therefore our calculation is confirmed by the united testimony of Josephus and Hecataeus. And imagine that the western flanks of the gate of waters and of the gate of projection which were built in the corners of the court correspond to the width of the eastern cloister of eleven cubits and that the doors correspond to the intermural space. For the doors of all the gates were ten cubits wide and twenty high, as the Talmudists tell us. The wall Chajil will occupy about three or four cubits of the length of the eastern flanks, and the gates will project further than the others by seven or eight cubits. For the Talmudists write that the gate of projection was so-called because it extended outside the court. Rabbi Jose calls it the gate of the Singers. Evidently the Levites used to sing in two places – one was above the fifteen steps, i.e., in the intermural space directly opposite this gate , the other was on the raised platform beside the one-cubit parapet inside between the court of Israel and the altar. By their similar length of 32 cubits, the other gates will correspond very well to the parts of the court directly opposite, and so will the chambers with their length of 22 cubits. Thus the first two chambers will correspond to the space of 22 cubits between the eastern cloister and the altar; the two gates of offering will correspond to the length of the altar, 32 cubits; the second two chambers will correspond to the distance between the altar and the porch which is 22 cubits; the two following gates will correspond to the width of the porch, which is 32 cubits. The two next chambers and gates and the furthest chambers together with their western wall will correspond with the full length of the chambers, and a space will remain of 13 cubits which was needed for cooking the sacrifices, unless you prefer to extend the furthest chambers that far. And so the gates, excluding the doors, will be equal to the chambers. With these dimensions also the gates on the outside and the chambers on the inside are made approximately square; this is the preferred shape in sacred buildings. Finally the Talmudists specify 38 chambers around the temple, of which 30 constitute ...

<12v>

... of the sanctuary, it was about five plethri. [Editorial Note 40] Five plethri are 33313 Attic cubits. And the gentile Hecataeus, had undoubtedly learned that measurement from the Alexandrian Jews, since he lived in Egypt under the Greek Kings, and hearing plethri or cubits, he thought of the Greek measures, although the Jews meant their own. This is clear from the width of the inner court, which Hecataeus in the same passage makes to be 100 cubits. These are sacred cubits, and thus [derived from the Jewish accounts] in Hec. he received the dimensions from Jews, and they were in sacred cubits, and he did not know sacred cubits. They are given as Atti{c} cubits by Hecataeus as he was writing for his fellow-gentiles. The Jews therefore gave not Greek measures for their temple, but sacred measures following their own tradition. Hecataeus for the sake of simplicity of expression put plethri for cubits. Restore the cubits, and the length of the sanctuary will be 33313 cubits or, in round numbers, 334, as we have it. The second argument is that the altar has to stand in the middle of the whole sanctuary. For it stood of old in the middle of the great court, and the Jews would not readily have changed its place. Also the inner sanctuary must have been in the middle of the great court, and its eastern and western edges should be equidistant from the sides of the court. Any other position would be irregular and unseemly. The altar stands therefore in the common centre. And so it is in our description. Here the altar stands in the middle of the Priests' Court. For on one side it is twenty two cubits to the Porch of the temple, on the other the same distance] to the eastern cloister. On one side the flanks of the porch of the temple with a width of 28 cubits, on the other side the eastern cloister and the intermur. space, which together are of similar width. {Jew-} On one side is the separate place with a space of 90 cubits, on the other the women's court with a space also of 90 cubits. Then on either side are the wall of the sanctuary of two cubits,, the intermural space of 10 cub. and the wall Chajil 6 cub. Thus the total distance from the centre of the alt. to the outer surface of the wall Chajil in both directions is 167 cubits.

the whole space of 86 cubits opposite the porch and temple as it rises above the treasure chambers on its sides, and the furthest chambers which Josephus calls the western chambers together with their walls, three cubits thick, will occupy the whole remaining space of 25 cubits right up to the western wall of the court. And the two furthest chambers on the east with a width of 22 cubits will occupy the whole space between the altar and the eastern cloister. And the western flanks of the two furthest gates with a width of 11 cub will allow room for the intervening eastern cloister. And the doors with a width of 10 cub. will correspond to the further intermural space. For the doors of all the gates according to the Talmudists were 10 cubits wide and 20 high. That this was the position of these gates, we understand both from Josephus and from the Talmudists

<13v>

# I have now described the second temple, but Josephus must be reconciled with the Talmudists as far as the measurements are concerned. This is not the place to argue extensively about these. I will say briefly that for the measurements of the Gentiles the Jews used their own measurements under Gentile names, for example the sacred Cubit for the lesser Roman pace, two sacred cubits for the greater pace, a thousand sacred cubits or Berah, for the lesser mile, 2000 sacred cubits or a Sabbath day's journey for the greater mile, the measure of four sacred palms for the cubit of the Greeks, 400 such cubits for the stade of the Greeks, and the length of the racecourse of the Royal horses in the valley next to the temple – about 70 reeds or 400 sacred cubits – for the greater stade. It is with this stade that Josephus describes the circumference of the outer wall. The a[10] Talmudists mean the other stade when they equate the mile, that is 2000 sacred cubits, with seven stadia and a half. And Josephus consistently uses the cubit of this stade when he is writing to the Gentiles, except in certain very famous measurements of the temple strictly so-called, which are also mentioned in holy Scripture, where he felt obliged to retain the sacred cubit. This will be clear by the comparison of the cubits of Josephus with the sacred cubits of the Talmudists in the following table:

Cubits given by Josephus

Cubits of Josephus reduced to sacred cubits

Cubits given by the Talmudists

Height of the wall Chajil

{external

40

2623

{interna

25

1623

The difference corresponding

15

10

912

Height of the latticework Barrier

3

2

2 cub. vulg.

Gates

{height

30

20

20

Altar

{height

15

10

10

Internal height of the temple

60

40

40

Circumference of the pillars

12

8

8

and so too when Josephus puts the chambers in a round number at 30 cubits, we have to write 20 sacred cubits, or more accurately, 22, as above. And certain other numbers of Josephus also need a similar conversion. I have explained this cubit of four palms by the Roman Cubit as a closely approximate measure, because Josephus writing to Roman and Greek people, undoubtedly used a cubit which they could take as their own without serious error.

11. 17,5. 4,5. 7875 (7,1591

<14r>

... let the {len}gth be 18712 cubits, and the twentieth part of this, or 938 cubits, the distance between the centres of the pillars. Hence by the proportions of the architects, it follows that the bases of the pillars should be four cubits in length and breadth, and the diameters of the shafts two cubits and four palms. So too the pillars were big enough for three men to embrace them with their arms joined to each other. The 'eustyle' proportion [Editorial Note 42], according to Vitruvius, requires that the intervals between the columns be a little bit less, but these are more pleasing, and for the architraves here there are huge blocks of marble that cannot be broken. From the size of the pillars and of the inter-columniations the internal height of the cloister is inferred to be about four reeds. The rooms constructed above and separated from each other by marble walls about two cubits thick will have a length of 6 reeds internally, a width of 3 reeds, an average height (as in the case of the temple) of, say, four reeds or a little less. There must be ample open spaces so that the crowds will not be crushed. Add the thickness of the floor between the storeys, the thickness of the roof and the height of the podium[Editorial Note 43] surrounding the roof, and the total external altitude will be about 60 cubits. And let the pavement of the cloisters be higher than the pavement of the court by half a cubit, and let it run out half a cubit beyond the bases of the columns towards the court. Such are the structures where the people eat the sacrifices on festival days.

Likewise the buildings on the perimeter of the inner court are determined from the gates of that court. Matching the internal facades of the gates, it has to be surrounded with a stone parapet, then with an open-air margin into which access is to be made by way of the inner doors in the sides of the gates, then by a cloister (Ezekiel 42.6) into which the outer doors situated in the same sides of the gates are to open, with the inner row of its pillars standing opposite the middle chambers, and the outer row and the inset wall standing directly opposite the external chambers. In that wall let there be the entrances into the lower rooms of the Princes, which Josephus calls treasure chambers, and from there let there be an ascent by steps in the thickness of the outer wall to the upper rooms of the Princes, which are built above those lower rooms and the cloister together. The outer face of this wall is to be constructed on the same plane as the external face of the gates, both because the external face of the gate is said to be the face of the inner court, Ezekiel 40.19, and because the rooms of the lesser priests also extend that far out. And let the pavement of the cloister extend half a cubit beyond the bases of the columns towards the open-air margin, and let it also be half a cubit higher than the pavement of that margin. If all is arranged in this way, the widths of the inner court will be the same as in the second temple, namely one hundred cubits within the one-cubit parapet, one hundred and thirty five within the buildings and two hundred if the buildings are included. And since this cloister, because of the equal structures of all the chambers, is of the same width as <15r> the cloisters of the outer court, the inter-columniations of this cloister too, in accordance with the length of the aisle, will also be equal to their intercolumniations. For this reason therefore the four intercolumniations on one side of the gate and the four on the other side, together with the width of the gate, will exactly take up the hundred cubits of the side of the court, and another two intercolumniations will stand directly opposite the eastern margin, and in the corner of the court room will be left for another two intercolumniations within the outermost wall. Above each of the intercolumniations let there be built individual rooms for each of the Princes, and on the southern side of the court there will be twelve rooms, and the same number on the northern side, in accordance with the number of the Princes of the companies of priests to whom they are assigned. There remain the chambers on the eastern side, of which one is to be assigned to the great Sanhedrin, another to the sacred morning and evening assemblies of the priests and the Levites, the rest to the high priest. Larger chambers are necessary for the great Sanhedrin and the sacred assemblies, and it is fitting that larger quarters should be assigned to the high priest than to the rest of the Princes. Therefore let two intercolumniations be assigned to each chamber, and there will be six chambers on the east side, bringing the number of chambers in the circuit of the inner court to thirty. Inside these will be five reeds long and five reeds wide, those of the Princes will be three reeds long and one and a half wide. If the average height is, say, two reeds, and the internal height of the Cloister is about three, the added thicknesses of the floor and of the roof and the height of the podium which surrounds the roof will bring the total external altitude to forty cubits at a minimum. And such is the building of the high priest and of the Princes on the perimeter of the inner court.

The buildings of the lesser priests on both sides of the separate place are as follows. Let the cloister already described and the passage between the rooms that are about to be described run in a straight line, with a doorway inserted that looks right onto the middle of both; there will then remain a width of twenty and a half cubits for ten rooms towards the left space (spatium relictum), and a width of nineteen and a half cubits for five rooms and the court of the cooks towards the outer court. ☉ < insertion from f 14v > ☉Let a cubit be deducted from the former width towards the separate space, so that the stone parapet that surrounds the separate place may be extended there; this will leave a path three or four palms wide between the rooms and the parapet. < text from f 15r resumes > The purpose of the Galleries <16r> is that one may ascend by a common stairway to all the rooms, passing along the Galleries after making the ascent. Let a stairway be conveniently made in the thickness of the eastern wall, which will have to be very substantial because of the wide retractions of the Galleries, with small rooms also constructed below in the thickness of the wall to serve for storage of the priests' vestments. If the total length of a hundred cubits is divided into ten parts by raised walls, the internal length of each room will be about one and a half reeds. Let the length and the height of each one be about the same, and the stories and the roof together with the podium on top will make a total external height of about forty cubits. Such are the buildings where the common sort of priests consume the sacrificial victims.

< insertion from f 15v >

Let the rooms in the gateways on the lowest, middle and top floors be assigned to the servants of the temple. From the lowest rooms let there be a way down into the baths, wells, granaries and cellars for storing wine, oil, wood, salt, hides of the victims, and such like – – – – – – – – – – –

The musical instruments of the Singers can be stored in the rooms of the inner eastern gate at the sides of the porch. Let the lambs for the daily sacrifice be kept in the rooms of the outer gate on the north. The lofts in the roofs around the perimeter of the court will perhaps serve for storing the lighter tithes [Editorial Note 44]

The side treasure chambers all around the temple are dedicated to the safe storage of the sanctuary vessels and similar sacred objects. Let the entrance to them be through the gate of the temple, and let there be an ascent by way of a spiral staircase, as in the second temple. Let their internal height be five cubits, 1 Kings 6.10, which, thrice repeated, together with the floors and the roof, will make an external height of twenty cubits at a minimum. The roof and the floors can be lighter here because they rest upon the wooden walls of the treasure chambers. Those walls, and the height we make them here, are thus described in the temple of Solomon. [Solomon] built twenty cubits [of walls] on the sides of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the roof, 1 Kings 6.16. The lowest treasure chamber < text from f 16r resumes > The lowest treasure chamber is five cubits wide, the middle one six, the top one seven, 1 Kings 6.6. A length of about six cubits is appropriate for such a height and breadth; and therefore the temple will be surrounded by thirty rooms, twelve on the south, twelve on the north and six on the west on each floor. To complete the full width of seventy cubits for the temple and the treasure chambers, there will need to be two rows of such treasure chambers together with a gallery lying between them, whose wooden walls are to be so constructed as to let the light in. <17r>

The length, width and height of the Shrine was twenty cubits, 1 Kings 6.20. Its cubic shape was the type of the new city of Jerusalem, Revelation 21, and thus has to be retained without question. The height of the holy place was thirty cubits, 1 Kings 6.2. For the door was twenty cubits high, and as the height of the door was double its width, so the height of the wall above the door was double the width of the wall at the sides of the door. ‡ < insertion from f 16v > ‡ This is the lowest temple, and the middle temple has to be placed over it as well as the highest one, all of which plus their floors, the roof and the podium are to make a height of one hundred and twenty cubits, 2 Chronicles 3.4. Let there be an ascent by steps in the eastern wall to the upper parts. It is fitting for the porch to be smaller than the rest of the temple in both width and height, nor should it be much higher than the lintel of wooden beams. < text from f 17r resumes > As formerly in the tabernacle, so in the later Temple, there were no windows. That is why lamps were burning there perpetually. The Shrine was wrapped in darkness (1 Kings 8.12, Psalm 18.9, 11, and 97.2), except when a spot had to be repaired, and light was admitted from the upper room above. For there were windows in the upper room, adorning the temple on the outside. The side building was placed around it, so that the lack of windows in the lower part would not be visible. < insertion from between the lines > Let a basement be laid down beneath the temple for honour's sake, in order that the throne of God not be placed directly on the earth. Let bronze columns be placed in front of the gateposts of the porch to support the overhanging facade of the porch which is fashioned from beams. The width of the bases will be six cubits on all sides, their height twelve cubits up to the surface of the door. Above them let the height of the pillars be eighteen cubits and the height of the capitals five cubits, 1 Kings 6.15, 16, so that the combined height of bases, pillars and capitals will be thirty five cubits, 2 Chronicles 3.15.

< text from f 17r resumes >

Further, since the length of the separate place is a hundred cubits, and the length of the inner court a hundred cubits, their combined length will be two hundred cubits. Picture to yourself that the whole of the temple stands in the separate place and the whole of the porch in the inner court, and that the stone parapet extending on both sides from the back corner of the temple to the rear corner of the building where the Priests eat the sacrificial victims divides between the separate place and the inner court. For it will lead around so that the inner court is surrounded on all sides by a uniform parapet and no entry is provided into the separate space. <18r> Thus the width of the separate space at the sides of the temple will be fifteen cubits, on the west seven cubits, and on the east, between the side building and the eastern face of the parapet, three cubits. If the seventy cubit width and the ninety cubit length of the side building is added to these dimensions, the length and width of the separate place, one hundred cubits, will be reached. The same length for the temple is made up as follows. The bases of the bronze pillars occupy six cubits, the Porch twenty cubits, the eastern wall of the holy Place six cubits, the holy place forty cubits, the middle wall two cubits, the Shrine twenty cubits and the western wall of the Shrine six cubits. The total is a hundred cubits. Outside the western parapet let a continuous wall be made, of the same height, with buildings on its perimeter, and let the outer court be enclosed in the same area with a similar wall.

Now that we have made these arrangements, we will have a structure in which the purposes of the temple are catered for throughout, nothing essential is missing which cannot not easily be made up, there is no spurious and useless magnificence, yet all the parts are most magnificent and related to each other in the best order and in the best proportions. The more sacred and dignified matters are looked after in the more sacred and dignified places, and the rest in places appropriate to their quality. For the rooms assigned to the sacred services, the Great Sanhedrin and the high Priest are in the most dignified area outside the stone parapet, the Princes have the rooms that are next in dignity, the custodians of the temple have the rooms on the more dignified side of the perimeter, the custodians of the altar, rooms on the less dignified side; the lesser priests have the lesser rooms, the Servants of the temple are in the gatehouses; and the general Public has the outermost rooms. The sizes of the rooms correspond to their dignity and purpose. The rooms of the Princes are twice as big as those of the rest of the priests, twice as big again are the rooms of the high Priest, and twice as big yet again are the rooms assigned to the crowds in the great court. Everything is either square or twice as long as it is broad, for these are the two shapes which, as being more perfect than any other, were favoured of old in the design of the Tabernacle. Multiples of three are also employed in everything. There are thirty rooms on the perimeter of the outer court, thirty on the perimeter of the inner court, thirty on the sides of the separated place, and twice thirty on the perimeter of the temple, and in both courts the pillars correspond to the divisions <19r> of the rooms. By all these analogies the design we have assigned to the rooms is abundantly confirmed.

In our description of the temple we retain just about everything that was regular in the second temple and everything else that is known about the first temple. David gave to his son Solomon the plan of the temple and its buildings and its storerooms and upper rooms and the inner rooms and the house of propitiation, and a plan of all that had been in his spirit about the courts of the house of the Lord and about all the rooms all around them, about the treasuries of the house of God and about the treasuries of the sacred things and about the divisions of the priests and about all the work of the service of the house of God and about all the vessels of the service of the house of God, etc. 1 Chronicles 28.11. The temple of Solomon therefore had rooms and upper rooms and cellars; both courts also had rooms all around them, exactly as in our description. All these things had been designed for specific purposes. Thus we retain the general structure of the temple, and to run through details, < insertion from f 18v >

< text from f 19r resumes >

We retain the dimensions of the temple properly so-called, the one-cubit retractions all around it, and the dimensions of the treasure chambers set over each other in three stories as written in ✝[11] holy Scripture and the multiples of three mentioned by x[12] Josephus. And since Cyrus reduced the temple both in breadth and in height by taking away five cubits from both (Ezra 6.3), and by cutting out the galleries by doing this, we have put the galleries back in, and thus restored the correct width of seventy cubits. We also retain the bronze pillars in the porch in such a way that their function is apparent, we have reduced the massive porch of the second temple to its correct size. For who would want a porch that was bigger than the building itself?

Furthermore, as Solomon doubled the lengths and the widths of the tabernacle and of its Shrine, so it stands to reason that he should have doubled the length and breadth of the court of the tabernacle; hence the breadth was a hundred cubits and the length two hundred. The same breadth was retained in the second temple, despite the fact that the length was diminished somewhat by the women's court. We retain both the same length and the same breadth, together with the regular stone parapet all around. Indeed, we retain the breadth of one hundred and thirty five cubits between the buildings of the inner court, two hundred cubits including the buildings, as in the second <20r> temple; likewise the continuous wall on the west side and all the gates regularly situated, which Josephus[13] says were one on each side of the inner court in the temple of Solomon; likewise the widths and heights of the doors and the position of the altar in the middle of the gates – because of its position the inner door on the north is called the gate of the altar, Ezekiel 8.3, 5. In the temple of Solomon the inner court was surrounded by three טורים rows or orders of stones and one row of cedar beams, 1 Kings 6.36. The same was the case in the temple of Zerubbabel Ezra 6.4. Therefore the perimeters of the inner court were similar in both temples. We have retained the form of this perimeter in the second temple, rejecting only certain spurious gates which Herod, I think, inserted. In the book of Ezra these three rows are said to be made of stones of convolution, i.e., pillars. There were two rows of pillars in the cloister, and a third in the parapet mentioned above, which, though it was of a smaller size, was nevertheless of greater artistry and greater fame, and as the boundary of the court properly so-called, it would not have been proper to neglect it. Imagine that the row of cedar beams was arranged in the roof of the cloister, each one across two columns, and that they were skilfully carved, so that together with the rest of the wooden decoration of the roof they would offer a pleasing sight to anyone who looked up at them. From the fact that there was only one row of these, it is inferred that there was only one cloister on this perimeter. Furthermore, Solomon, alluding to the divinely revealed temple, writes: Wisdom has built for herself a house, she has carved out seven pillars.[14] This is the number of pillars on both sides of the eastern gate and on the eastern sides of the other two gates. Also in the outer court there are three times seven pillars on both sides of each gate.

The buildings on the sides of the separate place where the common sort of Priests eat the sacrificial victims, are thought to be described nowhere else but in the visions of Ezekiel. The spirit had foreseen it, and therefore he gave an extensive description of them in these visions. For the same reason he gave a prolix description of the gates also; but he passed over almost in silence the shape of the buildings on the perimeters of both courts, which can be inferred from elsewhere. In these visions the spirit laid down only what he foresaw would be essential for <21r> reconstituting the shape of the temple in the last times.

< insertion from f 19v >

It has already become clear that Solomon built rooms on the perimeter of this court. Jeremiah records their function in this way. When God bade him introduce the Rechabites into one of the rooms in the house of the Lord, I introduced them, he says, into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, son of Igdaliah, which was [in the Gate] next to the room of the Princes, above the room of the doorkeeper, Masseiah, Jeremiah 35.4. Next to the room of the Princes, i.e., one of the Princes, or next to the block of their rooms. For Baruch is reading the discourses of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the chamber of Gemariah, son of Shaphan the Scribe in the upper court [i.e. in the inner court] at the entrance of the new gate of the house of the lord [i.e. at the side of the gate], Jeremiah 36.10. And later this Gemariah is mentioned among the Princes, verse 12, and therefore there were individual rooms for each of the Princes. And although in the second temple the number of rooms was too small for one to be assigned to each of the Princes, there remained nevertheless vestiges of this ancient mark of distinction. For a[15] there were twenty four boxes or caskets provided there within the wall of the temple Porch, one for each of the companies of priests where they kept their sacrificial knives. b[16] There were also in the second temple ninety six chests for the vestments of the priests to be stored, i.e., four for each individual company; and its name was inscribed on the chests of each company. By parity of reasoning this is clearly signified in the book of Revelation, where those Princes are represented by the crowned Elders, and they sit on twenty four thrones. For as the Shrine of the temple is meant there by the throne of God, so by the thrones of the Princes we are to understand their seats or chambers. Two rooms were assigned to the High Priest in the second temple, the room of the Counsellors (Parhaedri) and the room Abtinas[Editorial Note 45]; and in the room of squared stone also sat the great Sanhedrin. In the first temple, where there were more rooms, it was appropriate for two different rooms to be assigned for public prayers <20v> and for the great Sanhedrin; and by analogy we assigned four rooms to the high Priest. But in the first temple the great Sanhedrin sat in a room in the inner court, as Ezekiel indicates when he describes the idolatry of those seventy Elders in the room where they sat, ch. 8.11,12.

< text from f 21r resumes >

Moreover, there was just about the same magnitude in the outer courts of both temples. For Solomon had surrounded the mountain with a great wall which remained the boundary for the second temple also. Therefore both temples had the same outer boundary, and just inside this boundary was the perimeter of the court whose eastern side, even during the second temple period, kept the name of the cloister of Solomon, whether because of its ancient walls or simply from its position. But the sides of the outer court in the second temple were five hundred cubits according to the Talmudists, and Josephus agrees, giving those sides on the interior one stade, i.e., about 70 reeds or 400 cubits, and on the exterior six stades for the whole perimeter including the Antonia. Six stades make 2400 cubits; if you take away 2000 cubits for the perimeter of the court alone, 400 cubits will remain; when these are augmented by the sections of the sides which end where the Antonia joins the court, they will make a perimeter for the Antonia of 600 cubits, which agrees well enough with the description of Josephus. Therefore the outer court of Solomon had sides of 500 cubits, and was therefore equal to the outer court of Ezekiel. We have brought back into the corners of this court the small courts which Zerubbabel had moved to the women's court. We retain those orders or rows of pillars with which the court of Solomon was surrounded, 2 Kings, 11.8, 15, together with the shape of the double cloister which was preserved in the second temple, especially in its eastern cloister, which retained the name of Solomon and which Herod and his successors left intact. Josephus puts the width of this double cloister as thirty cubits, no doubt Attic cubits, i.e., twenty sacred cubits more or less. So too in the court of Ezekiel, according to our description, the width is eighteen cubits between the bases of the outermost columns, twenty two cubits between the centres of the pillars and nineteen and a third cubits between the pillars themselves, or a negligible amount more or less; and between the wall and the bases of the pillars which face the court is precisely twenty cubits. Thus we retain the width of the cloisters accurately enough. I have sometimes wondered why the number eleven was so much favoured in the second temple. The path on the western side of the temple was eleven cubits wide. Of the same width were the place for the entry of the Priests, the court of Israel and the shoulders of the gates. The distance between the Porch of the temple and the altar was twice eleven cubits, and of the same size were <21v> # And the troop as a whole was divided into three parts, and a third part was stationed outside the temple beside the house of the King, i.e., in the western valley beside the Shallecheth gate through which was the entrance into a certain very grand road that led from the house of the King into the precincts of the temple. Since both the King and the people ascended by this road into the temple, it was of such great magnificence that the Queen of Sheba admired it, 1 Kings 10.5. Hence the approach to it was guarded by placing four gatekeepers below at the Shallecheth gate and two above at the Parbar, i.e., in the two small rooms for the gatekeepers on either side. The gates being divided between the gatekeepers by lot, six gatekeepers were placed every day at the eastern gate under Shelemiah, four at the northern gate under Zechariah, four at the southern gate under Obed-Edom, and four at the western gates on the way of ascent, i.e., at its gate Shallecheth and two at the Parbar, 1 Chronicles 26. No more gatekeepers are stationed anywhere except the two on each side at the two colleges [Editorial Note 46] in the suburban area (suburbanum), and therefore there were no other gates; and when the King went up by that road, he went by the circuit of the suburban area (suburbanum) to the eastern gate, through which God himself had prescribed that he should enter, Ezekiel 44.2, 3, and the people, turning at the house of the King, went out through the southern gate, 2 Kings 11.19. Now since Jehoiada wanted all the approaches to the temple to be guarded, he stationed the troop, [Editorial Note 47] in three divisions, at the places where the gatekeepers were normally located, except at the closed gates on the east; by this means he ensured that no one could break into the temple without first making an attack on the outer guardposts and then also on either one of the inner guardposts.

Thus, finally, if the road of ascent is added to the temple of Ezekiel, I have shown that both the temple of Solomon and everything that was regular in the temple of Herod, so far as descriptions of them survive, is in all points consistent with it. And I have recounted these points of agreements at some length – – –

<22r>

For if the 70 cubit width and the 90 cubit length of the side building is added, a leng{th} and width of a hundred cubits will be reached for the separate place. The same length for the temple is calculated as follows. The bases of the bronze pillar occupy six cubits, the Porch occupies twenty cubits, the eastern wall of the holy place six cubits, the holy place 40 cubits, the middle wall two cubits, the Shrine twenty cubits, the western wall of the Shrine six cubits. Total 100 cubits. Outside the parapet on the west let a continuous wall be built of the same height as the buildings on the perimeter, and let the outer court in the same area be enclosed by a similar wall.

It stands to reason that the Hebrews, in migrating from Chaldaea [Editorial Note 48], brought their native cubit that they had learned from their ancestors with them into Syria. This is confirmed both by the dimensions of the chest – growing less. This therefore was the proper and principal cubit of the Jews. Later when they went down into Egypt and spent more than two hundred years living under Egyptian rule and serving these masters in harsh servitude, and were actually engaged in construction projects, where measurements needed to be thought about every day, it was inevitable that they should learn the cubit of the Egyptians. This is why the Hebrews had two cubits, their ancestral one and an imported one. And as the ancestral cubit obtained the name of sacred from the fact that sacred things were measured by it, so the imported cubit was considered common because it was used for common purposes only. That this is so is confirmed by the proportion of the cubits. For the Babylonian cubit is two English feet to the Memphytic cubit's 1.7171,719 feet as 6 is to 51511000, i.e. as the sacred cubit is to the common cubit rightly 51571000. This small difference could have arisen either from the Babylonian brick structure is of greater antiquity than the Pyramid, or more likely from the size of the brick being expressed not in precise but in the nearest round numbers, [or finally from a variation in the cubits of Babylonia. If the brick cubit was the smaller one, add half a digit, and it will be the larger cubit, 2124ft. This is to the Memph. cubit as 6 to 5120,]. Further as it stands to reason that the imported and profane cubit should agree with the cubits of the nations all around from whom the Jews are not descended, the Memphytic, Samian and Persian cubits, so it is proved by this argument that that cubit is the same as the Memphytic cubit.

< text from f 22r resumes > <23r>

these thee for 197 9 these these

from the lesser by multiplication, and that multiplication was made by tens. Thus the Amra of the Egyptians was a hundred cubits long and 100 wide. And since these people portioned out their lands in Aruras by measurement every year after the inundation of the Nile, the reed as an efficient unit of measurement must have consisted of ten cubits. [Editorial Note 49] From the first two terms one may make a conjecture of the larger measurements in the progression by 10s. There are also vestiges of this progression among the Hebrews. For although their reed consisted only of six cubits because of the size of their cubit, nevertheless they defined a Berah, i.e., the breadth of pasture which would be sufficient for a flock under one shepherd, as a thousand cubits, and they defined a Sabbath day's journey as two thousand cubits. Since therefore the eastern nations based their measurements on the cubit as the western nations did on the foot, the pace and the Orgya, the Schaeni[Editorial Note 50] of the Egyptians and of the other nations ought to consist[Editorial Note 51] And

The larger measures of the ancient nations were composed of round numbers of the smaller measurements from which they were derived. Thus the Schaeni of the Egyptians and other Eastern nations and the Parasang of the Persians derived from round numbers of cubits. But the smallest Schaenus of the Egyptians, by the testimony of Artemidorus and Strabo,[Editorial Note 52] equalled about 30 Greek stades, and the Parasang by the testimony of Herodotus, Xenophon and others, also equalled about 30 Greek stades, and the round number of cubits to which this number of stades is closely equivalent is ten thousand. Therefore this Schaenus consisted of 10000 Memphytic cubits, and the Parasang consisted of the same number of Persian cubits, and ten thousand cubits of either kind equalled 30 stades, i.e. 18,000 Attic feet, and both the Egyptian and the Attic cubit is to the Attic foot as 9 to 5 approximately.

This calculation is confirmed by the modern cubit of the Egyptians employed in the city of Gran Cairo, [Editorial Note 53] which Gravius has measured as 18241000 Eng. ft. This cubit comes closer to the old Memphytic cubit than to the smaller cubits of the Greeks, Romans and Arabs who ruled in Egypt, and therefore I think it is derived from that Memphytic cubit. But it is bigger than it. And what wonder if through more than three thousand years the measurement altered. All measures of feet and cubits now far exceed the dimensions of human limbs. Yet Gravius tells us, on the basis of Egyptian monuments, that human stature was the same three thousand years ago. The measures therefore have increased. For this fact there are several explanations. The instruments which are customarily employed as standards of measures <22v> {aemus } get bigger when they are contaminated by rust. Spirits diffused through the air which pervade rocks and corrode them can also permeate metals and insensibly expand them by clinging to them. Artisans too in fabricating the instruments are inclined to err on the side of too much material rather than too little, and when in filing the metal they reach a dimension that they think is sufficient, they stop, knowing that if the Master finds fault, they can easily correct it by filing away that tiny little bit but they can't make it up if it is too short. Let us lay it down therefore that all measures have gradually increased, and in the early ages especially people were less careful about this, and the Memphytic cubit in Roman times will be intermediate between the old cubit and the modern cubit, and will approach more closely to the modern one. The old cubit was 17191000 Eng. ft. and today's cubit is 18241000 ft. Therefore the middle cubit will be 179100 or 1810 approximately. And ten thousand such medium cubits will make thirty Attic stadia as it should.

The above calculation is confirmed from the Persian cubit [Editorial Note 54] by the modern {ارس}, Arish or Persian cubit, which Gravius gives as 31971000 Engl. ft. For undoubtedly that cubit was a double cubit, so that a simple cubit was 1598510000 feet. If this cubit was double, and if from the time of the Roman Empire the simple cubit of the Persians grew in the manner of the Egyptian cubit, the simple Persian cubit Let us lay it down that this cubit from the time of the empire of the Greeks and Romans grew in the manner of the Egyptian, and the old Persian cubit was 157100 ft. approximately. Herodotus [Editorial Note 55] calls this the medium cubit in comparison with the cubits of the Greeks and of neighbouring nations, and says that the Royal cubit of the Persians was three digits larger than it. Understand digits of the royal cubit which Herodotus uses, and the royal cubit will be to the medium cubit as 24 to 21, and therefore since the medium cubit is 157100feet, the royal cub. will be 11941000 approximately. And ten thousand such cubits make thirty Attic stades as it should.

In addition to these, we should add the Samian cubit which Herodotus says is equal to the Memphytic [Editorial Note 56]. [These are the older cubits of the nations whose size it has been possible to determine.] In confirmation of all of this, one can reflect that the primary measures of cubits and feet should have the proportion which the cubit/forearm of a man has to a foot of the same man, for they were derived from human limbs at about the same time, i.e., the the size of eastern cubits/forearms to the size of western feet. For the forearms/cubits of western men are not primary measures, and therefore ought not to be taken into account here. For this reason too the cubit of the Arabs is also to be excluded, because it is derived (as I think) from the Attic cubit, and the medium cubit seems to be more recent than the other cubits

<23v>

Furthermore, as features of the first temple were retained in the second temple, so in our description of the temple we largely retain both whatever was regular in the second temple and whatever else is known of the first temple ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

David [Editorial Note 57] gave to his son Solomon the plan of the temple and of its buildings and of its storerooms and of its upper rooms and of its rooms in the Shrines and of the house of propitiation. And the plan of everything that had been in his spirit about the courts of the house of the Lord and about all the rooms all around them; about the treasuries of the house of God and about the treasuries of the sacred things and about the divisions of the Priests and about all the work of the service of the house of God and about all the vessels of the service of the house of God etc., 1 Chronicles 28.11. The temple of Solomon therefore had rooms and upper rooms and adjoining storerooms. Both courts also had rooms all around them, exactly as in our description. We retain the dimensions of the temple properly so-called, the one-cubit retractions all around it, and we retain the dimensions of the storerooms set around it as given in the holy scriptures, 1 Kings 6.2, 2 Chronicles, 3, as well the multiples of three in the three floors mentioned by Josephus (Antiquities, bk. , ch. ) [Editorial Note 58]. Since Cyrus reduced the temple both in breadth and in height by taking away five cubits from the one and five cubits from the other (Ezra ) [Editorial Note 59], thus cutting out the galleries, we have put the galleries back again and restored the correct width of seventy cubits. We retain the bronze pillars in the porch in such a way that their function, hitherto unknown, becomes apparent, we have reduced the massive porch of the second temple. For who would want a porch that was bigger than the building itself? This the Jews could hardly have derived from anywhere other than from a misunderstanding of the prophecy of Ezekiel in ch. 45. As Solomon doubled the lengths and breadths of the Temple and of the Shrine, so it stands to reason that he doubled the length and breadth of the court of the tabernacle; hence the breadth will be a hundred cubits and the length two hundred. This same width was retained in the second temple, despite the fact that the length was diminished somewhat by the women's court. We retain both the same length and the same breadth, together with the Regular stone parapet around the perimeter of the whole. We retain a breadth of one hundred and thirty five cubits between the buildings of the inner court and of two hundred cubits including the buildings, as in the second temple, likewise the continuous wall on the west side, and all the gates regularly sited, as Josephus [Editorial Note 60] says they were, one on each side of the inner court in the temple of Solomon, as well as the widths and heights of the doors, and the position of the altar in the middle of the gates, and the form of the buildings on the perimeter. For in the temple of Solomon the inner court was surrounded by three טורים, rows or orders of stones and one row of cedar beams, 1 Kings 6.36. The same was the case in the temple of Zerubbabel, Ezra 6.4. Therefore the perimeters <24r> of the inner court were the same in both temples. We have retained the shape of this perimeter in the second temple, rejecting only certain spurious gates inserted, I think, by Herod. For as we learn from Josephus, Herod changed the shape of the temple, as the great Sanhedrin brashly arrogated such authority to itself. In the book of Ezra these three rows are said to be made of stones of convolution, i.e. pillars. There were two rows of pillars in the cloister, a third in the parapet, which though it was of a smaller size, was nevertheless of greater artistry and greater fame, and as the boundary of the court properly so-called it would not have been proper to neglect it. Imagine that the row of cedar beams was arranged in the roof of the cloister, each one across two columns, and that they were skilfully carved, so that together with the rest of the wooden decoration of the roof they would offer a pleasing sight to anyone who looked up at them. From the fact that there was only one row of these, it is inferred that there was only one cloister on this perimeter. Solomon, alluding to the divinely revealed temple, writes that wisdom has built for herself a house, she has carved out seven pillars. [Editorial Note 61] This is the number of pillars on either side of the eastern gate and on the eastern sides of the other two gates. Also in the outer court there are three times seven pillars on both sides of each gate. The buildings on the sides of the separate place, where the common sort of priests eat the sacrificial victims, are thought to be described nowhere else but in the visions of Ezekiel. The spirit had foreseen it, and therefore he gave an extensive description of them in these visions, whereas he almost passes over in silence the form of the buildings all around both courts which can be inferred from elsewhere. In these visions the spirit laid down only what he foresaw would be essential for reconstituting the shape of the temple in the last times. Furthermore, the size of the outer court in both temples was about the same. For Solomon had surrounded the mountain with a great wall which remained the boundary for the second temple also, so that both temples had the same boundary, and the cloister on the eastern side, whether because of its ancient walls or from its position alone, retained the name of the cloister of Solomon [Editorial Note 62]. But the sides of the outer court in the second temple were five hundred cubits, according to the Talmudists, and the calculation of Josephus is the same; he makes the sides of the inner court one stade or about 420 cubits, and of the outer court six stades on the whole perimeter including the Antonia. Six stades make 2520 cubits. Take away the perimeter of the temple, 2000 cubits, and 520 cubits will remain; when these are augmented by the sections of the sides which end where the Antonia joins the court, <24v> they make a circuit for the Antonia which agrees well enough with the description of Josephus. Therefore the outer court of Solomon had sides of five hundred cubits and was therefore equal to the outer court of Ezekiel. Further, the outer court of Solomon, just like that of Ezekiel had , i.e. rows of pillars all around Kings , and likewise had three gates on three sides. For when Jehoiada – – – – This too is why God made this complaint about the Kings of Judah, They have built, he says, their threshold next to my threshold and their gateposts next to my gateposts, and there was a wall between me and them and they polluted the name of my sanctity with their abominations which they have done, and therefore I consumed them in my wrath, Ezekiel 43.8. On the west therefore there was no gate. Moreover, we have restored to their places the small corner courts which Zerubbabel had transferred to the women's court. Likewise we retain the double cloisters with which the second temple was surrounded, and we are right to do so, since in the eastern cloister, the only one that Herod and his successors left intact, we have a specimen of the cloisters of Solomon, so far as we may infer from the name. Josephus gives the width of this double cloister as thirty cubits – Attic cubits we must suppose, i.e. twenty sacred cubits more or less. In the court of Ezekiel, according to our description, that width is eighteen cubits between the bases of the outer pillars, twenty two cubits between the centres of the pillars and nineteen and a third cubits between the pillars themselves or a negligible amount more or less; and between the wall and the bases of the pillars which face the court is precisely twenty cubits. Thus we retain the width of the cloisters. I have sometimes wondered why the number eleven was so much favoured in the second temple – – – – directly opposite. [Editorial Note 63] We also retain the size and number of the pillars accurately enough, as far as can be inferred from the southern cloister, as described at considerable length by Josephus. Also we keep the heights of the cloisters. Josephus says that on the inside this was more than 50 feet, say 54 feet, i.e., 36 Attic cubits or 24 sacred cubits. All these coincidences at length confirm that the temples of Solomon and Ezekiel were of the same shape, and that we have described this shape correctly, and that the descriptions of others are mistaken where such coincidences are lacking.

<25r>

Appendix On the size of the sacred cubit.

Since everything we have said above sometimes depends on the conversion of gentile cubits to sacred cubits, it will not be irrelevant briefly to confirm that conversion. A study of the cubits of the different nations will assist us here.

From the dimensions of the Pyramids of Egypt, accurately measured by the Englishman Gravius, [Editorial Note 64] I calculate the length of the old Memphytic cubit as follows. The width of the Pyramid was 693 English feet. In the beginning it is very likely that the measure was expressed as some round number of cubits. Ibn Abd Alhokm, cited by Gravius, says that the dimension was a hundred royal cubits. It is also likely that the Egyptians learned the measure of four Memphytic cubits from the Orgya[Editorial Note 65] of the Greeks, and gave it the name of royal cubit. Thus the width of the Pyramid will be 400 simple cubits, and a cubit will be 1732510000 Engl. ft. A large number of measurements confirm that the Pyramid was constructed with a cubit of this size. The square entrance of polished stone was 34631000 Engl. ft. in width and height, i.e. two such Memphytic cubits. And the other four tunnels were of the same height and width. In the centre of the Pyramid was a room with polished marble walls 3438100 feet long and 1719100 feet wide, i.e., 20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide, given a cubit of 17191000. The difference between this and the former cubit [Editorial Note 66]

The Englishman Purchasius [Editorial Note 67] reports [following/reporting his friend Allenius] that in Babylonia, between ancient Babylon and Baghdad, there still survives a great shapeless mass of brick, whose individual bricks his friend Allenius measured as one foot in length, eight inches in width, and six inches thick. These proportions show that the bricks were regularly shaped; and therefore, in shaping them, they had in mind some Babylonian measure, and rightly so, in order that the workmen might easily calculate from the number of bricks the dimensions of the walls in length, width and depth, and vice versa. Qu{estion}: since the Babylonians measured buildings by cubits, it follows that bricks should make up a cubit in length, width and thickness. And in fact two bricks in length, three in width and four in thickness do make this measurement. Therefore this measurement is a cubit. And thus the Bab. cubit is equivalent to two Engl. ft., and the length of a brick at three palms, its width at two and its thickness at one and a half palms {imply} the division of this cubit into six palms.

Of the Persians. Now the cubit/forearm of a man, as I have measured it myself, is to a foot of the same man as 9 to 5. Vitruvius [Editorial Note 68] gives the proportion as 3 to 2, but this is taken not from the limbs of an individual man but from the Roman measures. Let us take it therefore that the cubits which are the oldest feet of the Romans, Greeks, Tungri, etc. are 9 to 5

<25v>

In fact we cannot follow this, unless we are willing to depart from the Mosaic proportion in the dimensions of the court which closely surrounds the temple and the altars, by which with Villalpandus we make the length more than twice the width.

Understanding that Sene Vigani who has been here performing a course of Chymistry to several of our University much to their satisfaction, has the honour to be acquainted with you, I have upon his departure hence presumed by him to salute you. I remember when I was last so happy as to enjoy your converse.

Furthermore, we have restored to the corners of this court the small courts which Zerubbabel had moved to the women's court. Likewise we retain those rows or series of pillars with which the court of Solomon was surrounded, 2 Kings 11.8, 15, together with the shape of the double cloister which was preserved in the second temple, especially in the eastern cloister which retained the name of Solomon and which Herod and his successors left intact.

Finally we retain the number of gates. For since the eastern gate was accessible only to the prince and was rarely opened (Ezekiel ), [Editorial Note 69] Jehoiada [Editorial Note 70] divided the armed company within the temple into two, so that (with the eastern gate closed) one section would be on guard at the gate behind the race-trackwhich was also called the gate of the threshold or the gate of entry (as the Septuagint explains), 2 Chronicles 11, and therefore was the southern gate, and the other section would guard the gate סוד (2 Chronicles ) or (as it is more correctly written) the gate סור, 2 Kings, i.e. the gate of departure, which was on the north. For I ignore the conjecture of the Rabbis that this is the eastern gate. These gates were guarded, so that no one could break into the temple while the new King was being crowned, and thus two gates, and no more, were available to the people, as in the temple of Ezekiel, ch. . Add the closed gate of the prince, and the number of gates will be the same in both temples To make the reed equivalent not to six cubits exactly but to six cubits and a palm, to understand by the outer court in whose four corners the four small courts are set, not the whole of the outer court but one of the lesser seven courts into which the whole is falsely imagined to be divided, and thus to set the four courts, which are the only ones Ezekiel mentions, not in the corners of the single, unique outer court, which is the only one Ezekiel discusses throughout, but to set several small courts in several outer courts, and to embrace other such fictions which lack all foundation. Villalpandus [Editorial Note 71] set himself to fabricate it as splendid beyond measure, and to portray it as magnificent, so as to seize his Readers with admiration, and thus he did all he could to enlarge the cubit and the palm and the number and magnificence of the buildings, and he introduced every proportion of Greek architecture into the temple, claiming <25r> that the Greeks derived their architecture {solely} from the structure of the temple; we are more pleased with the simple truth.

<26r>

Appendix on the size of the sacred cubit

An investigation of the sacred cubit is relevant to the description of the temple, which may also contribute something to the understanding of the measurements in the book of 'Revelation'. An investigation into the cubits of various nations <27r> will help us define it.

The cubits of the Romans – – – < insertion from f 26v > The cubits of the Romans and Greeks a[17] were one and a half feet, and consisted, exactly like the sacred cubit, of six palms and twenty four digits. [18]For Roman and Greek feet consisted of a[19] four palms and sixteen digits. The Roman foot was also divided into twelve inches (unciae) or pollices[Editorial Note 77] and equalled 967 thousandths of an English foot, as the Englishman Gravius [Editorial Note 78] has determined more accurately than anyone else by a careful survey of Italian monuments and by reflection on the arguments of other writers – Philandrus, Agricola, Paetus, Villalpandus, Snellius and others. The Roman cubit therefore is 1450510000 Engl. ft.

The best-known of the Greek feet was the Attic foot. Modern writers equate this with one Roman foot and a half-inch of that foot; this is because the Greek stade consisted of six hundred Greek feet, and at one time eight Greek stades equalled a Roman mile. But it is probable that the nearest round numbers have been used here. And if you say that the ancients sometimes made a stade equivalent to125 paces, that proportion could have been derived not from a comparison of feet with each other, but from the aforesaid proportion of a stade to a mile expressed approximately in round numbers. Suspicion is increased because Polybius in Strabo [Editorial Note 79] departed from this usual computation and equated a mile with eight stades and a third, and by this reasoning the Attic Foot will be equal to the Roman. The former computation is favoured by the fact that the Ptolemaic foot is equal to the Roman foot and half an inch, if this foot perhaps was generated from the Attic foot. The latter computation is supported by the porphyry column excavated in Rome with the inscription ΠΟΔ Θ, i.e., nine feet. For the foot of this column, by Phylandrus's measurement, was larger than the Roman foot by only one ninth of an inch. That difference shows that this foot was different from the Roman foot, and the inscription shows that it was a Greek foot. Others may determine whether it was an Attic foot. For our part, until something more certain is established, we assume no more than that the Attic foot was not smaller than a Roman foot nor greater than a Roman foot plus half an inch. This being granted, we shall have the size of an Attic cubit pretty closely.

The Derah, or Arabic Cubit, similarly consisted d[20] of six palms and twenty four digits, and as I think, approximately equalled the Roman or Attic cubit. For it was a fifth of the royal Egyptian cubit, i.e. (as will soon be clear) four simple Egyptian cubits, which have already been equated with five Roman cubits. Likewise the Persian Parasang, i.e. thirty Attic stades, was equal to three Arabic miles, each one consisting of a thousand Orgyae, or Arabic paces, i.e. four thousand cubits; hence the Arabic cubit was equal to the Attic. Undoubtedly the nomadic Arabs, serving first as soldiers under the Romans and later founding an empire in Syria, learned the coinage, weights and measures of the Romans and Greeks from the people they conquered. And so we leave this cubit and proceed to more ancient cubits.

From the dimensions of the Pyramids of Egypt < text from f 27r resumes > From the dimensions of the Pyramids of Egypt, accurately measured by the Englishman Gravius, I calculate the length of the old Memphytic cubit as follows. The width of the first Pyramid was 693 English feet. In the beginning it is extremely likely that the measure was determined by some round number of Egyptian cubits. Ibn Abd Alhokm cited by Greavius says that this measure was a hundred old royal cubits. And it is very likely that the Egyptians learned the measure of four Memphytic cubits from the Orgya of the Greeks, and gave it the name of royal cubit. In this case the width of the Pyramid was 400 simple cubits or four arurares[Editorial Note 80], and a cubit will be 17321000 Engl. ft. Very many dimensions confirm that the Pyramid was built using a cubit of this size. The square entrance of polished marble was 34631000 Engl. ft. wide and high, i.e. two such Memphytic cubits. And the other four tunnels were of the same height and width. In the centre of the Pyramid was a room with polished marble walls which contained the tomb of the King, 3438100 feet long and 1719100 feet wide, i.e., 20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide, given a cubit of 17191000 of a foot. The difference between this dimension for the cubit and the former one is 12510000 or 180th. part of a foot, i.e. about 17th. of an inch; a clearly negligible discrepancy, if one considers the much bigger irregularities that Gravius has noted in the best buildings of the Romans. And the roof of this room consisted of nine oblong parallel stones, of which the seven in the centre were of the same width, the two at the ends were half the width, and the widths of all of them together equalled the length of the room or 20 cubits; thus the width of the centre stones was two and a half cubits. Furthermore, a kind of marble passage that led into this room was 687100 feet wide, i.e., four cubits of the room. In the middle of this passage was a path of polished marble 34351000 feet (i.e., two cubits) broad, and on both sides of the path a bench, which was also of polished marble, 17171000 ft. high and 1 ft. wide, i.e. one cubit in height and width. Who would now believe that so many measurements, <28r> in no way dependent on each other , just simply happen to coincide with the length we have assigned to the cubit?

Moreover the division of this cubit into six palms is startlingly apparent in the dimensions of the Pyramid. For the height of the passage by the measurement of Gravius was about 26 feet, i.e. fifteen cubits. Take away the height of the benches, and the remaining height will be 14 cubits. This was divided into seven parts by the seven rows of stones in the walls of the passage, and each of the higher rows projected beyond the one beneath it by about three digits, as is shown in the attached diagram, where AB is the width of the path, ACD the bench, DE the height of the first row of stones, EF the projection of the second row and FG its height, GH the projection of the third row and HI its height, and so on right up to the roof which corresponds to the path AB. The height therefore of each row of stones was two cubits, and the six projections EF, GH etc., which correspond to the one cubit DC, were a palm in size. Specimens of division of a cubit also survive in the king's tomb mentioned above. For since the cubit DC is 17171000 ft., and therefore the palm is 2861000 ft., ten palms will be 286100 ft, seven palms and three digits will be 22171000ft., and twenty five palms and two digits will be 72931000 ft. Now Gravius measured the internal height of the monument as 286100 ft., its internal width as 22181000ft. and its external length as 7ft. 3 12ins. , i.e. 72921000ft.. Therefore the internal height of the monument was 10 palms, its internal width 7 palms and three digits, and its external length 25 palms and two digits without noticeable error. The external height and width was 3ft. & 334dig., i.e., 11 palms and 214 digits, provided that Gravius has given us the dimensions with sufficient accuracy.

There are also other specimens of this cubit: for example, the total length of that Passage, together with the subtense of a right-angled triangle whose base was 15 ft., its height about 5 or 6 or possibly 7 ft., was measured by a line to be 154 ft.. Take away the subtense, and the remaining length for the Passage itself will be about 138 ft., i.e., twenty time its width or <29r> twenty royal cubits. Two other separate tunnels have been measured with a length of 110 feet, i.e., sixteen royal cubits, and another room with a width of about seventeen feet, i.e., ten cubits, and a kind of chamber seven feet long and about three feet and a half wide, i.e., with a length of four cubits and a width of two approximately. And, as I think, the Pyramid was constructed throughout on the basis of this cubit.

If anyone in future reports in this manner the dimensions of the remains of the ancient buildings of Babylonia and other nations, it will not be difficult to work out the ancient cubits of those regions. Meanwhile I offer a specimen of the procedure that occurs to me. [Editorial Note 81] The Englishman, a[21] Purchasius, reports that there is extant in Babylonia between ancient Babylon and Baghdad a great shapeless mass of brick, whose individual bricks his friend Allenius measured as one foot in length, eight inches in width and six inches in thickness. He means inches of the English foot. These proportions show that the bricks were regularly shaped; and therefore, in shaping them they had in mind some Babylonian measure, and rightly so, in order that the workmen might easily calculate the dimensions of walls in length, width and depth from the number of bricks, and vice versa they might calculate the number of bricks required for building any given wall. Question: since the Babylonians measured buildings by cubits, it follows that bricks, when put together, should make up a cubital dimension in length, width and thickness. And indeed two bricks in length, three in width and four in thickness do make up that very measurement. Therefore the measurement is cubital. Thus therefore the Babylonian Cubit is equivalent to two English feet, and its component parts imply a division of this cubit into six palms, so that the dimensions of a brick could be expressed in round numbers of palms: the length three palms, the width two palms and the thickness one and a half. From further observations future researchers will perhaps define the cubit more accurately than this.

I think I can infer the size of a Persian cubit from their Parasang. {For} one must be aware that the bigger measures, larger than human limbs, were normally derived <30r> from the smaller ones by multiplication, and multiples of ten and sometimes of two were employed in this multiplication. [22]Thus the Reed [Editorial Note 83] of the Romans or pertica consisted of ten feet, the Scripulum of ten feet in length and 10 in breadth, the Versus of 100 feet in length and 100 in breadth, the Clima (a measure derived from the Greeks, as the name indicates) consisted of ten Orgyae long and ten wide, the Actus of two Climas long and two wide, the Iugerum of two square Actus in length, the Decumanus of ten Actus in length and ten in breadth, the Centuria of ten Decumani long and ten wide within Italy – of twice that number outside, the Saltus of a hundred Decumani long and a hundred wide, the Milliare of a thousand paces long, and a day's journey consisted of twice ten milliaria. The Greek reed, called ἄκαινα, consisted of ten feet, the Clima of ten feet in length and ten in breadth, the Plethrum of a hundred feet in length and breadth, the Stade of a hundred Orgyae long, and the day's journey (according to Herodotus) of two hundred stades; [23] and in the Province of Cyrene, in the lands which Ptolemy, the Greek King of Egypt, left to the Roman people, there were Plinthides consisting of fifty limites long and fifty broad, and each side of those square limites was ten stades. Certain examples show us that as the western Nations proceeded from the foot in multiples of ten, so the eastern nations proceeded from the cubit/forearm in tens. For example, among the Hebrews, a pastoral people, a Kibrah of land or pastures, sufficient as I think for a flock under one shepherd, was defined as an area of a thousand cubits, and a Sabbath day's journey as a length of two thousand cubits, and that among the Egyptians an Arura[Editorial Note 84] consisted of a hundred cubits long and a hundred broad. And since the Egyptians portioned out their lands in Aruras every year after the inundation of the Nile, the reed as an efficient unit of measurement must have consisted of ten cubits, so that by multiples of ten they would make up an Arura. And for a similar reason the larger measures into which those lands were divided must have consisted of tens and hundreds of Arurae.

The larger measures therefore of the ancient peoples consisted of round numbers of the measure of of those smaller ones from which they were derived, and therefore the schaeni <31r> of the Egyptians and of the other eastern peoples and the Parasang of the Persians must have consisted of round numbers of Cubits. Now the smallest Schaenus of the Egyptians, by the evidence of Artemidorus and Strabo [Editorial Note 85] equalled thirty Greek stades, and the Parasang by the testimony of Herodotus, Xenophon, Hesychius, Suidas, Agathias, as well as of some 'others' in Strabo, [Editorial Note 86] also equalled thirty Greek stades and the round number of cubits to which this number of stades is equivalent is ten thousand. Therefore this schaenus consisted of ten thousand Memphytic cubits, and the Parasang consisted of the same number of Persian cubits, and ten thousand cubits of both kinds equalled 30 stades.

The calculation of the Egyptian cubit is confirmed by the modern cubit of the Egyptians employed in the city of Gran Cairo, [Editorial Note 87] which Gravius measured as 18241000Engl. ft. This cubit comes closer to the old Memphytic cubit than to the smaller cubits of the Greeks, Romans and Arabs who ruled in Egypt, and therefore it would seem to be derived from that Memphytic cubit. But it is bigger than it. And what wonder if through more than three thousand years the measure changed a little bit. Measures of feet and cubits now far exceed the size of human limbs, and yet Gravius tells us, on the basis of the Egyptian monuments, that human stature was the same three thousand years ago as it is now. It is the measures therefore that have increased. For this fact there are several explanations. The instruments which are customarily employed as standards of measures get bigger when they are contaminated by rust. I{ron} when struck with an iron hammer can over a long period of time insensibly expand. Then again in fabricating instruments, artisans are inclined to err on the side of too much material rather than too little, and when, in filing them, they reach a dimension which they think is sufficient, they stop, knowing that if the Master finds fault, they can easily correct it by filing away that tiny little bit, but they can't make it up if it is too short. Let us lay it down therefore that all measures <32r> have gradually increased, and in the early ages especially people were less careful about this, and the Memphytic cubit around the period of the Roman empire, will be intermediate between the old cubit and the modern cubit, and will approach more closely to the modern one. The old cubit was 17191000Engl. ft. and today's cubit is 18241000Engl. ft. Therefore the medium cubit will be 178100ft. or 179100ft. approximately. And ten thousand such medium cubits make thirty Attic stadia, as should be the case.

The above calculation is confirmed from the Persian cubit by the Arish, [Editorial Note 88] or modern Persian cubit, which (doubled, as I think) Gravius measured at 31971000 Engl. ft. If a half of this was a simple cubit and from the time of the Greek and Roman empire it grew in the manner of the Memphytic cubit, it will have been at one time 157100Engl. ft. approximately. Herodotus calls this the medium cubit [Editorial Note 89] in comparison with the cubits of the Greeks and of neighbouring nations, and says that the Royal cubit of the Persians was three digits larger than it. Understand this as digits of the medium cubit, which was better known to the Greeks, and the royal cubit will be to the medium cubit as 27 to 24, and therefore since the medium cubit is 157100Engl. ft., the royal cubit will be 1766141000 approximately. And ten thousand such cubits make about thirty Attic stades, as they should.

The preceding calculations are also confirmed by a general line of reasoning which compares feet and cubits accepted in early times in every nation, according to the proportion of a man's limbs, from which they were derived. For the foot of a man is to the cubit/forearm of the same man as about 5 to 9, as I have myself measured, and anyone else may easily try it out on his own body. And the oldest feet of which reliable information has come to us, are the Roman, the Ptolemaic, and the Drusian foot of the Tungri [Editorial Note 90] in Germany; the Drusian foot is equivalent to 1312 inches of a Roman foot. Corresponding to these three feet, in the proportion of 5 to 9, are the three cubits 1740610000Engl. ft. 1805610000Engl. ft. and 1958210000Engl. ft.; and these are about the sizes we determined above for the older cubits, the Memphytic, <33r> the Babylonian and the Persian. Add to these the Samian, which Herodotus [Editorial Note 91] equates with the Memphytic. The cubits of the Greeks and Latins which were secondary measures, adapted to previously standardised measures of feet, ought not to be taken into account here.

Now that the cubits of the eastern peoples by whom the Hebrews were surrounded have been determined in this manner, we can make a conjecture from them of the size of the Hebrew cubit. The common Hebrew cubit ought not to be larger than all of these, nor the sacred cubit smaller than all of them. Accordingly, we must reject the view of Villalpandus and others who equate the common cubit with two Roman feet and a half, as well as the view of others who insist that the sacred cubit and the Attic cubit are equal. That the sacred cubit was very large is shown both by the Hebrew reed which had only six such cubits, and by the antiquity of this cubit, since it was with it that Noah measured the ark. However it should not be made so large that the common cubit, which at the time of Moses was called the cubit/forearm of a man (Deuteronomy 3.11), is much longer than the cubit of a moderately tall man. But we define these cubits within stricter limits as follows.

< insertion from f 32v >

We said, on the basis of the Talmudists and Josephus, that the Jews employed a measure of four sacred palms for the cubit of the Greeks. The Greek cubit comes closer to four Hebrew palms than to five or three, i.e., it was less than 312, more than 412 palms. Hence it follows that the sacred cubit of six palms was less than 247 Attic feet, less than 2 Attic feet.

Of the human body – – –

< text from f 33r resumes > <34r>

could have been generated from the same {primitive} cubit in different regions, while the sacred|Hebrew cubit, suffered less expansion, once they began to measure holy things by it. That the common Hebrew cubit was generated from the Memphytic cubit, as the sacred cubit was generated from the Chaldaean, is shown by the proportion of the cubits to each other. For as the common cubit consisted of five palms of the sacred cubit, so the Memphytic cubit consisted of five palms of the Chaldaic cubit very nearly. For the Memphytic cubit was more than 17191000Engl. ft. and the Chaldaean cubit about 2 Eng. ft., and the former number is to the latter as 515710000 to 6, i.e., very nearly 5 to 6. That small fraction of 15710000 might derive either from the fact that the mass of brick in Babylonia was of greater antiquity than the Pyramids or from imperfect measurement of the brick. Let us say therefore that Hebrew cubits are derived from the Babylonian and Memphytic cubits, and from the Memphytic cubit at the time when the Pyramids were built, i.e., as Gravius argues, the common cubit of the Hebrews is known to be equal to the Memphytic cubit two hundred years after Moses. Later one must believe that all the cubits insensibly expanded, so that the common cubit always remained about the same size as the Memphytic cubit, but it was surpassed by it exactly as the sacred cubit was surpassed by Babylonian cubits. Thus therefore, immediately after the time of Moses, both the common cubit and the Memphytic cubit will have been a twentieth of the sepulchral chamber in the middle of the Pyramid, i.e. 17191000Engl. ft., and between this cubit and the Memphytic cubit as it was under the Roman empire, which we said was approximately 1791000Eng. ft, the common cubit at the same Roman period will have a medium size between them. Hence the sacred cubit, which is to the common cubit as 6 to 5, will have been 262810000 Engl. ft. immediately after the time of Moses, and under the Roman empire it will have been in the middle between 262810000 and 215100. All of this is confirmed by a number of arguments.

<35v>

Bases of 22 palms

The intervals between the bases are double the length of what they will be if the gateposts to which the 12 bases of the outer 12 pillars are fixed, project beyond the gates by 50 digits, and are 112 times the bases in width. The lengths of the pillars are nine times the shafts, six times the bases, equal to the width of the cloisters between the centres of the outer pillars, 22 cubits. The total internal height of the cloisters is one and a half times the width between the bases of the outer pillars, i.e. 2712 cub. Let the rooms set above them copy the forms of the ho{ly} place in length, double in height, one and a half times in width, with one-cubit stone walls set between. Thus a room will equal the lower cloister in height and width. Let the thickness of the floor between them be two cubits, that of the roof five, as in the Herodian temple, and the full height of the building will be 62 cubits. Add a pavement of half a cubit, and the he{ig}ht of 6212 cub will be a third of the length. Add the podium ab{ov}e, and the total height of about 66 cub will be triple the width between the axes of the outer columns.

In the inner court, let the bases of the pillars and the intervals between the bases be the same size as in the outer court. Let the gateposts to which the outer half-pillars are attached {project} ten digits beyond the walls of the gates. In the two corners on the east let there be square columns with gateposts of six digits. Let the pillars of1423 cubits be six times the shafts, four times the bases, double the width of the aisle between the pillars, and as 2 to 3 in relation to the pillars of the outer court. Let the remaining heights be made in the same proportion, and the eastern rooms will be cubic, 3623 cub. in length, width and height, and that will also be the inner height of the cloister.

Let the rooms of the lesser priests be cubes, 916 cubits in length, breadth and height, unless perhaps the height should be increased.

Let the side treasure chambers in the middle row be cubes of six cubits in length, breadth and height, including the wooden walls and the ceilings. Triple that height, together with the rain-pool and the roof on top, will make a height of 22 cub.

The pillars on the front of the porch are shorter in relation to their thickness because they rest upon high bases.

<36r>

The stature of the human body, a[24] according to the Talmudists, measures about three cubits from feet to head. But if a man stands on tiptoes and also lifts and stretches his arms up, he will add more than one cubit to himself and measure four cubits. Now the average stature of men, barefoot, is more than five Roman feet, less than six, and will best be set at five and a half. Deduct two-thirds, and that cubit, i.e. the common cubit, will be more than twenty inches, less than twenty four inches of the Roman foot, and thus the sacred cubit will be greater than 24 inches and less than 2845 inches of that foot.

‡ Josephus writes – – – < insertion from f 33v > ‡ Josephus [Editorial Note 92] writes that the pillars of the outer court were as big as three men could embrace by joining their arms together. The outstretched arms/Orgya of a Man are commonly given as equal to the stature of the same man, but more truly it exceeds his stature by one palm of a Roman foot approximately. People commonly use approximate round numbers, but here exact numbers have to be employed. Therefore add a palm to the masculine statures given above, and when the sums are tripled, the smaller pillars will be 1534 Roman feet in circumference and the larger ones 1834 feet. Now that circumference, according to the Talmudists and Josephus, as given above, was eight cubits, at least in the inner court. Therefore taking one eighth of the numbers above, the sacred cubit will be more than two Roman feet, and less than two and a third. We have assumed here the pillars of both courts, i.e., in thickness though not in height. Certainly the pillars of the inner court were not thicker than those of the outer court, and therefore the latter limit necessarily obtains.

< text from f 36r resumes >

By the universal consent of the Talmudists and all the Jews, a Sabbath day's journey was two thousand cubits. Hence the Chaldaean Interpreter/Translator of Ruth 1.6, says: We have been ordered to observe the Sabbaths and the good days, so as not to go more than two thousand cubits. In determining this journey, Jews sometimes substitute paces for cubits. Erasmus has this in his notes on Acts 1.12 about the Sabbath day's journey: The Evangelist means a distance of two thousand paces. It was not lawful for Jews to make a longer journey than this on the Sabbath. For Jerome declares in writing to Algasia, in the tenth question: undoubtedly it was a matter of strict religious observance for Jews not to walk more than two thousand paces on the Sabbath as a result of the teaching of Rab Akiba Simeon [Justus] and Hillel, Rabbis whom they were accustomed to call 'our masters'. [Editorial Note 93] Thus Erasmus, reading not 'feet' as the printed editions of Jerome corruptly have it, but 'paces'. And hence in Numbers 34.4 for a thousand cubits the Latin translator writes a thousand paces. Be careful however not to understand Roman or Greek paces. For in sebbóle lécheth, treatise 22, chapter on the Sabbath, these paces are defined as follows: Samuel made a journey through the valley <37r> and did not know the limit of the Sabbath. A journey of two thousand average paces is the limit of the Sabbath. As if he had said, A Sabbath journey is a journey of two thousand paces for a man on the Sabbath, and not at a swift speed as in Roman paces, nor too slowly, but with the average pace of a man walking as men walk on the Sabbath. Now men of average stature walking in this manner cover more than two Roman feet with each step, but less than two and a third, as will readily be apparent to anyone who tries it, and therefore the sacred cubit will be bounded by these limits.

< insertion from f 36v >

The Talmudists write that the height of each of the steps by which one ascended into the inner court was half a cubit, and the tread was half a cubit. But they mean the sacred cubit, and we have seen that Josephus's calculation with regard to the height of these steps agrees with this. Now Vitruvius laid it down [Editorial Note 94] that the height of steps should not be more than ten Roman inches, the treads not less than eighteen inches. Hence when the Jews made the heights and the treads equal, one has to believe that they used an average proportion, and set both the heights and the retractions at about twelve or at most thirteen Roman inches. The middle proportion (ratio) between 10 and 18 is about 1312. I would argue that this height was in no way surpassed, so that the steps would not be too difficult to ascend. Therefore the sacred cubit was less than 27 Roman inches, but not less than 24 inches, so that the treads would not be too small.

< text from f 37r resumes > <38r>

A Sabbath day's journey was a Jewish mile. Origen in Stromata, 5, [Editorial Note 95] Μίλιον ἓν ἡ του σαββάτου ὁδὸς δισχιλίων πηχων ὑπηρχε etc., One mile was a Sabbath day's journey of two thousand cubits; and this was particularly because the holy Tabernacle and the Ark proceeded at this distance in front of the ranks of the army on the march, they pitched their tents at this distance, which was the nearest those who laid out the camps were permitted to come to the holy Tabernacle. So Origen. But just as the Roman Mile consisted of two thousand smaller paces and a thousand larger paces, so too the Jewish mile (if I am not mistaken) is sometimes spoken of as two thousand cubits and sometimes as only a thousand, depending on whether the measurement of the cubit is taken from the bend of the arm to the ends of the finger-tips or from the middle of the chest. So when the areas outside the walls of the cities of the Levites were extended from the walls for a thousand cubits all around, Numbers 35.4, that measurement is explained in the words that follow as two thousand smaller cubits. In the same sense perhaps we should understand what Arias Montanus [Editorial Note 96] reports from the Rabbis in these words: Cambius on Ezekiel 48.2 testifies that one mile contains a Thousand Emoth [i.e. cubits] of land, but in the book of the Mishnah each mile is defined by [cubits and] parts that are called דיסיין Dizzijm, e.g., a Thousand Emoth and seven and a half [dizzijm], in the tractate on Iona, ch. 6, parag. ד. We read that this mile is called כרוב {Chrulb}in the book Haruch. So Arias Montanus. But I suspect that the word כרוב or כרב is a corruption of the word ברח, Berath. For by Berath, Genesis 35.16, 48.7 and 2 Kings 5.19, all Jews mean a Mile. But the Jewish mile was twofold. The great mile, says Arias, under another name is called פרסה, Parasa, and is said to consist of four miles by Helias in Thesbis and by Moses Gerundens in the Commentary on Deuteronomy, p. 137, col. 1. The reason for this name and this fact is explained in the Misnaioth, the treatise on Tham, ch. 3, parag ח and in the commentator on that passage. And this was the Parasang of the Persians about which the old Hebrew poet says at the end of pharasath sekalím

A day's journey contains ten parasae

And every Parasa four miles.

Herodotus [Editorial Note 97] writes that the Parasang was equivalent to 30 Greek stades. Xenophon [Editorial Note 98] defines two Parasangs as sixty stades. For this reason the Hebrew Mile will be equivalent to 712 stades. [And this I think is the origin of that division of the mile into 712 parts which were called Rizzim or Dizzijm] Hence perhaps it is that in dividing it the Jews write that one mile consists of seven Rizzim (or Dizzijm) and a half, the dimension of the Riz being equal to the stade of the Greeks. For likewise as 8 stades are to 712 , so is the Roman smaller pace of 30 inches to the sacred Cubit of 2818 inches.

As a foot is defined in terms of inches, so the decempeda is defined by the foot, the actus by the decempeda, the pace by the actus, stades by the pace, the Mile by the stade, Frontinus, de Limit. Agr.[Editorial Note 103] In the linear foot there are two half-feet, in the plane foot 4 half-feet, [Editorial Note 104] in the square foot 8 half-feet. A foot has 4 palms, 12 inches, 16 digits. A palm has 4 digits, 3 inches. The sextans, which is also called dodrans, has 3 palms, 9 inches, 12 digits (ibid.)

In Italy the triumvirs made [Centuriae] five hundred jugera, elsewhere they were two hundred, Hygenus, de limit. const.[Editorial Note 105]

In the province of Cyrene, where the royal lands are, i.e. those which King Ptolemy left to the Roman people. There are plinthides, i.e. square laterculi, like centuriae, enclosed by boundaries of six thousand feet, each laterculus having jugera to the number of 1250. – Moreover, their foot, which is called the Ptolemaic foot, contains one standard Roman foot and half an inch. – Likewise it is called in Germany among the Tungri the Drusian foot, which contains the standard Roman foot and half an inch, so that whenever the subject is beyond the bounds and laws of the Romans, i.e., to express it more carefully, anywhere outside of Italy, there is need of an investigation. Hygenus. [Editorial Note 106]

240 feet in length and 120 feet in breadth make one jugerum, a piece of land of three modii.

Columella says [Editorial Note 107] of a κλίμα that it is sixty feet in every direction

A versus is 100 feet, for it is 100 feet long and the same number broad, on which Varro writes in the first book of On Agriculture[Editorial Note 109]. They say that a versus is 100 feet square in every direction.

The smallest part of a jugerum according to Varro [Editorial Note 112] is called a scripulum, i.e. a square ten feet in both length and breadth.

<39v>

266 such paces are contained in the Hebrew measure of Rizz or Dizz, according to Camilius on Jeremiah 31.4, Misnaioth Ioma, ch. 6, parag ד, and the tractate on Nezikim. In the same passage also one mile contains seven Rizzim and a half, and thus the Judaic mile consisted of two thousand two-cubit paces, and was identical with the Sabbath day's journey. So Origen in book V of the Stromata (in the codex Veronensis): One mile, he says, the – – – approach [Editorial Note 113]. And this is why some compare the Sabbath day's journey with the Roman Mile. But if the Romans marked their roads in miles not by accurate measurements but by walkers' paces, as is most probable, it was very likely that distant peoples estimated miles not by the Roman foot but by their own average paces. Thus when Suidas [Editorial Note 114] writes that the Mile is equivalent to seven and a half stades, we must not understand miles accurately measured by the Romans but miles that he himself had found on the roads measured by the paces of walkers. For Suidas could not, in his ignorance of the Roman foot, have been able to compare miles with Greek stades on any other basis. By the same reasoning I infer that it was Miles defined in this way that constituted a Sabbath day's journey, partly because Jews never speak of the Roman pace but define miles by the average pace, partly because, with Suidas, they divided the Mile into 712 parts which they called Rizzim or Dizzim, a division which without a doubt arose from a comparison of the Sabbath day's journey with the stade, which they had earlier received from the Greeks. They learned the great mile first from the Persians and called it פרסה, Parasa. This was the Parasang of the Persians, and it consisted of thirty Greek Stades as Herodotus and Xenophon Write, or four Jewish miles, as the Rabbis write. For this reason the Judaic mile consisted of seven and a half stades, and the stade was the same as the measure known as Riz. Therefore, on the supposition that the smaller Roman pace of thirty inches is to the sacred cubit as 8 is to 712, that cubit will be equivalent to 2818 inches. The Syrian translator of Acts 1.12 substitutes seven stades for a Sabbath day's journey. If we may conclude from this that the Sabbath day's journey came closer to seven than to eight stades, it may be determined as consisting of 7410 stades, and the sacred cubit will come out as 2734 inches.

Finally if a calculation of the bronze sea is to be added

<40r>

Now that the cubit is finally defined within certain limits, and thus the false opinions of other writers are put out of the way, we can now give its more precise measurement with greater safety and confidence. This we provide by the following argument.

It stands to reason that when the Hebrews migrated from Chaldaea, [Editorial Note 115] they brought the Cubit they had received from their ancestors with them into Syria. This is confirmed both by the dimensions of the ark of Noah, which were preserved by tradition in this cubit, and by the agreement of this cubit with the two cubits which the Talmudists tell us were sculpted on the sides of the city of Susa at the Persians' orders, one of which was half a digit larger than the sacred cubit, the other a whole digit. <42r> Conceive that one was a cubit of the royal city of Susa and the other of the city of Babylon. The sacred cubit therefore agreed with the cubits of various provinces of Babylonia as much as they agreed with each other, and the difference was so tiny that all of them could have been generated from the same primitive cubit in different regions, while the Hebrew cubit suffered less expansion after sacred things began to be defined by it. This therefore was the proper and principal cubit of the Hebrews. And later when they went down into Egypt, and spent more than two hundred years living under Egyptian rule and serving these masters in harsh servitude, and were actually engaged in construction projects, where measurements needed to be thought about every day, it was inevitable that they should learn the Egyptian cubit. This is why the Hebrews had two cubits, their ancestral one and an imported one. And as the ancestral one obtained the name of sacred from the fact that sacred things were measured in terms of it, so the imported one was held to be common and profane because it was employed for common purposes only. That this is so is confirmed by the proportion of the cubits to each other. For the Babylonian cubit of two English feet is to the Memphytic cubit of 17191000 feet as 6 is to 51571000, i.e. as the sacred cubit is to the common cubit approximately. That small fraction 1571000 might have been due either to variations in the Babylonian cubit, or to the fact that the Babylonian brick mass is of greater antiquity than the Pyramid, or even to the dimensions of the brick being expressed not in exact numbers but in the nearest round numbers. Put the thickness of the brick at 6316 English inches, its width at 814 and its length at 1238 inches, and a double cubit of that length will be as six to five to the Memphytic cubit. I would believe therefore that the Memphytic cubit at the time at which the Hebrews went down into Egypt equalled five palms of the Chaldaeo-Hebraic cubit, and so, as the Hebrews defined the size of this cubit by five palms of their own cubit, Memphytic palms were eventually ignored, and among the Jews <43r> two cubits survived but only a single palm. Furthermore, as it stands to reason that the profane and imported cubit agreed with the cubits of the nations around them – the Memphytic, the Samian and the Persian –, so we may also confirm that this cubit is the same as the Memphytic cubit by the following argument. Memphytic cubits of various dimensions were found in different parts of the Pyramid; they were 17171000Engl. ft., 17191000E. f. and 17321000E. f.. Corresponding to these dimensions, in the proportion of the sacred cubit to the common cubit, are the dimensions 260410000E.f., 262810000E.f. and 278410000E.f., which in inches of the Roman foot are 2557100, 2560100 and 2579100, and thus fall in the centre of the limits within which we have already placed the sacred cubit, which were 24 and 27 inches of the Roman foot. Thus then those dimensions agree well with the common cubit in virtue of these limits. On the supposition therefore that the Hebrews learned the Memphytic cubit in Egypt and that it was their common cubit, and thus that at the time of Moses and shortly after when the Pyramids (as Gravius argues) were built, this common cubit will have been of the same size as the Memphytic cubit, the sacred cubit at the same period was not less than 2557100 nor greater than 2579100 inches of the Roman foot. Those perhaps who survey the pyramid in future, will more strictly determine the precise size of the Memphytic cubit and hence also of the sacred cubit, by making further accurate measurements of the stones and comparing them with each other. Meanwhile in precisely defining the Memphytic cubit, I would give preference to the length of the room in the middle of the Pyramid where the royal tomb stood, a very large room and constructed with supreme craftsmanship, that length being a twentieth of the length of the whole pyramid and containing twenty cubits, which was measured by Gravius, as he himself affirms, as accurately as possible, and from this I would conclude that the sacred Mosaic cubit was equal to twenty five and six tenths inches of a Roman foot; or – which is the same thing – it has the same proportion to two Roman feet as 16 has <44r> to 15.

Mersennus in his treatise On Measurements, Prop 1, Corol 4, writes as follows: I find, he says, that the cubit in terms of which the learned Jew whom I met by the kindness of the illustrious Hugenius, Knight of St. Michael, believes that the dimensions of the temple were measured by, corresponds to 2314 of our pollices, so that it is 34 of a pollex less than two of our feet, and contains two Roman feet, two digits and a grain, which is ¼ of a digit. The Parisian foot with which Mersennus compared this cubit is equal to 1681000 English feet (by Gravius' measurement), and therefore is to the Roman foot as 1068 to 967. In the same ratio reciprocally are 2314 and 2568100. This cubit therefore is equivalent to 2568100 inches of a Roman foot, and thus falls in the centre of the limits 2557100 and 2579100 within which we have just defined the sacred cubit, so that I suspect that this cubit was taken from some genuine exemplar secretly preserved by Christians. And lest anyone be surprised that a cubit which we defined as 2560100 inches at the time of Moses did not increase more than this over a period of three thousand years, should reflect that the architectural palm of the city of Rome, which was once nine inches of a Roman foot, is now equivalent to 7321000 parts of an English foot, i.e. 912 inches, and thus in 1500 years it has grown only 112 of an inch, despite the fact that there was no religious reason for its preservation.

Some calculate the cubit from the bronze sea of Solomon [Editorial Note 116]. To prevent any objection that might be made on its basis, I will say briefly that the bottom of that sea should not be made spherical, as it usually is, but flat, so that all of the water would flow out for the use of the priests, and the vessel could comfortably sit on the backs of all the oxen, [Editorial Note 117] and the oxen would not obstruct the access of the priests to the epistomia[Editorial Note 118]. I would not however employ a cylindrical shape. The following shape will be more attractive. Let the line AB, of ten cubits, be bisected in C, and with AD EB, of a cubit each, taken upon it, let the lines DF CG EH, each of five cubits, be erected at right angles, and with the semiaxes AD, DF and BE, EH, let the quadrants of the Ellipses AF, BH be described, and with a right line FH drawn, the figure AFGHB turning on the axis CG, describes the external surface of the Vessel <45r> whose cavity, if it is a palm thick, will hold about two thousand Bath [Editorial Note 119], assuming that a Bath is equal to twelve Roman Congii[Editorial Note 120] (as Agricola and others argue) and that seven and a half Congii fill a Roman cubic foot, as Gravius found by the Farnesian Congius. It is also said that this sea held three thousand bath; hence some argue that there are two kinds of bath, others understand it as a dry measure whose conical top/mass equals half the contents, others suspect a variant reading, others finally think that the Sea held 2000 bath for daily use, but could hold 3000 bath when full. I do not settle the dispute.

These are the things that it has been possible to state at present about the size of this cubit. One day perhaps those who survey the holy mount <45v> and the monuments of the Chaldaeans will produce something more certain and precise by very carefully taking the measurements of the stones, bricks, foundations and walls and comparing them together.

<46r>

It is universally accepted that future events are foreshadowed by the prescriptions of the law, and the Apostle Paul amply testifies to this in Colossians 2.17 and Hebrews 8.5 and 9.23 [Editorial Note 121]. This is why in the prophecies which were published later about the same future events, and especially in the book of Revelation, allusion was made to these ceremonies, and why study of these allusions very much assists the understanding both of this prophecy and also of their {illeg}lium. And here the temple and its courts where everything took place are the first things to consider.

Later Maimonides following the Talmudists embraced their errors and o

There were two or three mounts on this ridge, of which one, which was the mount par excellence, was situated on Moriah in the eastern part of the city. The temple was built on its summit. At the beginning its summit was scarcely sufficient for the Court of the temple. Hence they made up the space they needed <47r> by building an immense and very high wall and by filling in the city between the wall and the mount until, when all was finished, there was a square area each of whose sides according to the calculation of Josephus [Editorial Note 122] was about one stade, or as the Talmudists more accurately say here, five hundred sacred cubits. Within this wall another wall was built above it all around with cloisters on the interior, and such was the height of the walls ✝ < insertion from f 46v > ✝ on the south that while the valley yawned to a very great depth below at that point so that the eyes of anyone who looked down grew dark, if anyone climbed on to the roof of the cloister constructed above it and tried to look down over both altitudes together, he could not do it without getting dizzy, as his sight failed because of the enormous depth, and before it reached his {bosom}. [Editorial Note 123]. < text from f 47r resumes > The whole Court was surrounded by these cloisters, and they were all double, i.e. they had three rows of pillars and two intercolumnar aisles. Except on the south side. [Editorial Note 124] For in its cloisters as they had been built by Herod, four rows of pillars stood at equal intervals, and the fourth or outermost had the aforesaid inset stone wall. And the thickness of each pillar was as much as three men could embrace by linking their arms together. There were 162 of them in all, a double moulding ran around the base of each one, and the capitals were sculpted in Corinthian style so beautifully it was marvellous to see. These four rows make by the intervals between them three cloisters, so that two identical cloisters, thirty feet wide, more than fifty feet high, and a stade long, enclosed a middle cloister, one and a half times wider and twice as high, so much did it surpass both. So Josephus in Antiquities bk. 15, ch. 14 [Editorial Note 125] giving the dimensions approximately. We must believe that the double cloisters which were constructed along the other three sides of the Court were equal to these two outer cloisters, so that the Court would look uniform all around. And those double cloisters rested upon pillars each twenty five cubits high, and they were thirty cubits wide, as Josephus, Jewish War, bk. 6, ch. 14 writes [Editorial Note 126]. Hence I conclude that, by Josephus's reckoning, the sacred cubit equalled two feet. But I simply don't know whether Josephus meant Roman feet or Greek feet or perhaps Jewish feet. Further, on the four sides of the court, in the middle of each side there was a gate, except on the west side. On this side the Talmudists write that there was only one gate, and two on the south side; but credence is due to Josephus, who had seen the place. And he a[25] writes that there was only one on the south side, equidistant from the two corners, and on the west side there were four gates, which led to the City, to the suburbs and to the Palace. ✝ < insertion from f 46v > ✝ Further the corners of the court in which the two cloisters met were of a different design from the cloisters. For [Editorial Note 127] Josephus speaking of the two cloisters on the north and on the west adds, ὡν ἡ συνάπτουσα γωνία της Κεδρων{ος} καλουμένης φάραγγος ὑπερεδόμετο [Editorial Note 128], whose corner <47v> where they joined each other, was built over the valley Cedron, whence its immense and terrifying height. Therefore what Josephus means by ... meeting points. [Editorial Note 129] And that is the reason why, when the Romans under the Emperor [Editorial Note 130] Titus had burned the northern gate and the fire had advanced as far as this corner, it stopped, and did very little damage to the eastern gate, as Josephus tells us in the same passage, Jewish War, bk. 7, ch. 19. [Editorial Note 131] < text from f 47r resumes > And this was the way the perimeter of the outer court was, <48r> as Herod had constructed it. Take away here the double cloister of the western side together with its four gates, as well as the middle cloister of the southern side, and you will have the perimeter of the Court constructed by Solomon, {as} Josephus explicitly asserts. For the double eastern cloister (which the southern and northern cloisters should resemble) was believed to have survived all the way from the time of Solomon, and it was the cloister which was called the cloister of Solomon (John 10.23) [Editorial Note 132]. Hence Josephus at times believed that this was the only one built by Solomon (Jewish War, bk. 6, ch. 14) and in describing the buildings of Herod, he says that many kings in the past had adorned this gate (Antiquities, bk. 15, ch. 14) [Editorial Note 133]. If Herod had rebuilt it, he would certainly not have made it double but triple, situated as it was in a spot more noble than the southern cloister which he himself much more made triple. Further, Josephus expressly affirms that all the cloisters with which Solomon surrounded this court were double Josephus expressly affirms, Antiquities bk. 8, ch. 2. Such therefore was the shape of three sides of the Court of Solomon. For on the western side I infer from the shape of the inner Court to which the outer court should correspond, that a continuous wall was erected without cloisters. Such was the Court of old.

The whole space of the Herodian outer Court open to the sky was paved with every variety of stone, and by Josephus the sanctuary . There was an ascent from it by 14 steps to the inner Court. That was commonly called the sanctuary by the Jews and was square above.

The whole space of the Herodian outer Court open to the sky [Editorial Note 134] was of many colours, being paved with stones of all different kinds; and at the point where the people passed into the second shrine, there was a barrier of stone lattice work as much as three cubits high made with exquisite craftsmanship; [Editorial Note 135] where pillars were placed at equal intervals with warnings, some in Greek characters, others in Latin, saying that foreigners must not enter the holy place. For the Jews permitted Gentiles to proceed this far, and everything outside of this they called the Court of the Gentiles. From this latticework barrier, with a small space intervening, one ascended by fourteen steps <49r> to the inner Court which was commonly called the sanctuary, and it was square at the top and surrounded by its own wall, whose exterior height, though it rose 40 cubits [27] from the surface of the Court of the Gentiles, rose however by steps [Editorial Note 136]. For those fourteen steps surrounded the whole sanctuary in a continuous and uniform line. And the interior height of that wall was twenty five [17] cubits. For the rest of its height could not be seen, since from the surface of the inner Court the roofs were about ten cubits higher than the outer Court. After fourteen steps there was a level space of ten cubits as far as this wall. And from this level space five further steps led to the gates of the same wall; of which there were six on the north and south sides, i.e. three on each side, and one on the east, besides the other three situated on the eastern side in the Court of the women. < insertion from f 48v > For since Gentiles were admitted into the outer Court, which in early times had been reserved for the Jewish people alone, though Jewish women were not permitted to go further in than this, the Jews constructed a new court for them on the eastern side of the inner Court, so that they should be distinguished from the gentile multitude, and since it was constructed in the outer court, it did not surpass it in height. For from the inner court one descended into the women' court by fifteen steps, and thus there remained only four steps from there into the Court of the Gentiles. There were three gates in this court similar and equal to the gates of the Upper Court, one on the east, another on the south and a third on the north < text from f 49r resumes > But the western part had no gate; an unbroken wall had been built there. And between the gates, cloisters which were some distance from that wall facing the treasure chambers that reached as far as the wall, were supported on large and very beautiful columns. But they were not double like the lower ones in the outer Court but single, and, except in size, they were in no way different from the lower ones. Six of the gates which were on the South and on the North (as well as the three in the court of the Women) were equal in size, and were sheathed in silver and gold on all sides, as were the doorposts and the facades. And there were two leaves to each of the doors, which were each twenty (30) cubits high, ten wide, and beyond the entrance twenty (30) cubits at the shoulders on both sides{.} They had chambers extended thirteen cubits in length and breadth (and thus they were square) and more than 14 (20) cubits high. Each one rested on two pillars of eight (12) cubits circumference. Consequently, in the cloisters between a pair of gates there would be three vaults, and the chamber ... the combined ... of a cloister and a treasure chamber

[Editorial Note 1] This is Newton's usual equivalent for porticus, which one might otherwise be inclined to translate as 'portico'. See Chronology, p. 332 and Plate I, and passim. Perhaps cf. OED sv. cloister, sense 3, 'a covered walk or arcade' ('The courtyard is surrounded with a cloister, as it is in monasteries').

[Editorial Note 3] I have translated the Latin literally. This room was otherwise known apparently as 'the Rinsing Room'.

[Editorial Note 4]exhedra caesi lapidis: in the corresponding passage in Babson 434 (f 35r) I translated this as 'the chamber of squared stone', because in that MS that is how Newton had previously referred to what is clearly the same room (Babson 434, f 23r; cf. Yahuda 2.4, f 3r below); the Latin for that is exhedra quadrati lapidis. I used this name for consistency's sake. Now I have a qualm of conscience about that, and think I should have used 'cut stone' there as I do here.

[Editorial Note 5] These two sentences occur at Babson f 27r, but the subsequent discussion proceeds rather differently.

[Editorial Note 6] Cf. Josephus, Jewish War, 5.215 ff.

[Editorial Note 7] Cf. Babson f 28r.

[Editorial Note 8] This paragraph corresponds to Babson 434 f 26r.

[Editorial Note 9] Ezra 6.3, from Babson f 26r.

[Editorial Note 10] The beginning of this sentence is restored from Babson 434, f 20r.

[Editorial Note 11] This is how I translated it in Babson 434; I would prefer to translate 'was bisected by a dividing floor (contignatio)], Or 'bisected by a dividing floor'.

[Editorial Note 12] but Babson has quadraginta, Yahuda quinquaginta]

[Editorial Note 13] Josephus, Jewish War, 5.209.

[Editorial Note 14]Contignatio, i.e., the flooring that divided the lower room of the temple from the 'upper room', as Newton interprets it above.

[1] α So the Talmudists.

[Editorial Note 15] Josephus, Jewish War, 5.220 - 1.

[Editorial Note 16] This line is incomplete and not fully intelligible as it stands in Yahuda 2.4. The corresponding passage in Babson 434 f 21r contains some extra words; it reads: lata vero et longa cubitis quadraginta, quadrataque stans, veluti cornutis angulis eminebat – 'and fifty cubits in length and breadth, being square, was topped by horn-shaped corners'. This fairly represents Josephus's Greek. There are several passages in Yahuda 2.4 which have been curtailed in this way.

[Editorial Note 17] The Latin translation in Babson 434 gives the opposite of the Greek original, which says, 'it sloped very gently'! Newton possessed a bilingual edition of Josephus's Opera quae extant omnia, published in Cologne in 1691.

[Editorial Note 18] A modern edition of Josephus (the Loeb) emends the text so that 'it' reads as 'the temple'.

[Editorial Note 19] Josephus, Jewish War, 5.225 – 27. I translated this differently in Babson 434. I think my present translation is more likely to represent what Newton took it to mean. In either case the Latin text does not render Josephus's Greek correctly; Josephus says: 'even priests were excluded when undergoing purification'. It seems as if the translator of Josephus did not quite know what to make of this difficult passage and fudged it, but I may be doing him an injustice.

[3] γ Consult the codex Middoth translated by Constantin l'Empereur [Editorial Note 22]; also the evidence published by Capellus and Arias Montanus from the Rabbis.

[Editorial Note 22] This looks like Talmudii Babylonici codex Middoth, de Mensuris Templi, ed. C. L'Empereur, Heb. and Lat., (Lugduni Batavorum: Elzevir, 1630). No record of this book in Harrison.

[Editorial Note 23] ultimo for Babson's intimo.

[Editorial Note 24] Cf. Barclay, Talmud, p. 256.

[4] δ Jewish War, bk. 6, ch. 5 and bk. 7, ch. 22.

[Editorial Note 25]Camerata. Another possible meaning for this word is 'vaulted'

[Editorial Note 26] See the preceding editorial note.

[Editorial Note 27] On Phinehas see the article 'Phinehas' in the EncyclopaediaJudaica, 2nd. ed., vol. 16, p. 116: 'The mishnaic list of officials of the Temple (Shek. 5:1) includes a Pinhas al ha-Malbush ("Phinehas, the guardian of the wardrobe").

[Editorial Note 28] Nowadays Latinists would write this word as leves rather than laeves, but possibly in 17c. this word was spelt as laeves ('smooth') to distinguish it from leves ('light').

[Editorial Note 29] In Babson I translated this as 'the gate of the offerings', though the text is the same in Babson. I must have read this name in some description of the temple.

[5]✝ Maimonides, On the Worship of God, Tractate 7, ch. 1.

[6]✝ Maimonides, On the Worship of God, Tractate 1, ch. 5.

[Editorial Note 30] Ezekiel 40.42, as in Babson.

[7]✝ In Josephus, Against Apion, bk. 1.

[Editorial Note 31] In Josephus, Against Apion, 1.197-99.

[Editorial Note 32] quasi palmorum sex vel septem circiter.

[Editorial Note 33] Ludovicus Capellus. Newton owned his Historia Apostolica, (Harrison 341), though whether it is this book that Newton refers to here, I don't know.

[Editorial Note 34] Cf. Babson 29r.

[Editorial Note 35] This seems to be Josephus, Jewish War, 5.296-302. Josephus gives the name of this monster battering-am as Nikon (Victor).

[8]✝ In Josephus, Against Apion, bk. {1}.

[Editorial Note 36] In Josephus, Against Apion, 1. 198.

[Editorial Note 37] Newton treats this word as masculine, though in Latin it is normally neuter, as it is also in its original Greek form.

[Editorial Note 42] The 'eustyle' proportion is one of five temple styles enumerated by Vitruvius in On Architecture, 3.3.1. This style has 'the just distribution of intervals'.

[Editorial Note 43] I have not been able to find a suitable architectural equivalent for podium here. It seems to indicate a raised area, like a platform, on the roof – a flat roof for walking perhaps. It is distinct from the podium as 'raised platform' in note above.

[19] a Vitruvius bk. 3 [Editorial Note 74] Hero in Isagoge. Hesychius,[Editorial Note 75] Suidas [Editorial Note 76] under the words πλέθρον (plethron) and πους (pous). Columella, On Agriculture, bk. 5, who calls the cubit 'semipedem' as if it consisted of a foot and a half. See also Frontinus, De limitibus agrorum [On the Boundaries of Lands], and Isidore of Seville, bk. 15, ch. 15. There is agreement among writers on these points; consult above all Agricola and Gravius.

[Editorial Note 74] Vitruvius, On Architecture, 3.1.8.

[Editorial Note 75] Presumably Hesychius, Lexicon.

[Editorial Note 76] Suidas, Lexicon.

[Editorial Note 77]pollices, literally 'thumbs', was also used as a unit of measurement.

[Editorial Note 78] This looks like John Greaves, A Discourse of the Romane foot, and denarius ... (London 1647). Harrison 697.

[Editorial Note 80] This is clearly the equivalent of the Greek arourai. No Latin equivalent is recorded in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. But according to the Dictionary of Medieval Latin, Bede in his Orthographia ['Spelling'] records arura as the transliteration of a Greek word which means arvum. Herodotus 2.168.1 gives a dimension for the arura. Cf. also ff. 23r and 31r.

[Editorial Note 81] There is a parallel passage at f 25r.

[21] a Purchas Pilgrimage part 1 lib 1. c 11. [Editorial Note 82]

[Editorial Note 82] Samuel Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage. Or religions of the world and the religions observed in all ages ... (London 1613). Harrison 1363.

[22] See Hygenus, Vide Hygenum De limitum constitutione And Siculum Flaccum de condit. agrorum. [Hyginus, Assignment of Boundaries and Siculus Flaccus, On the Conditions of Estates]

[Editorial Note 83] Some of this material occurs in f 39r.

[23] Hygenus, De limitum constitutione [On the Settlement of Boundaries].

[Editorial Note 84] On the arura, cf. f 27r.

[Editorial Note 85] Strabo, Geography, 17.1.24.

[Editorial Note 86] Strabo, Geography, 11.11.5: 'The Persian parasang, according to some, is sixty stadia, but according to others, thirty or forty'.

[Editorial Note 87] Parallel passage at f 23r.

[Editorial Note 88] Parallel passage at f 22v.

[Editorial Note 89] Herodotus, 1.178.3.

[Editorial Note 90] The Tungri were a people of Gallia Belgica or Germania Superior (Neue Pauly, sv Tungri). Newton seems to be following Hyginus, 'De condicionibus agrorum', which is available in Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, ed. C. Thulin (Stuttgart 1913/1971), p. 86.

[Editorial Note 91] Herodotus, Histories, 2.168.1.

[24] a This ratio is explicitly stated in the Misnaioth, tractate on Ghaburim, ch. 4 ה in the annotation.

[Editorial Note 115] Parallel passage at f 22r, insertion from the right margin.

[Editorial Note 116] Mentioned in Babson 434 f 2r.

[Editorial Note 117] The twelve (bronze?) oxen on which the bronze 'sea' sat.

[Editorial Note 118] I should think Greaves is right to translate this as 'cocks'. However the Greek word epistomion means 'bridle', something that goes upon the mouth (epi stoma), and the corresponding verb, epistomizo means 'to shut someone up'. Stomion can mean a 'mouth' or perhaps 'tap', though it too more frequently means 'bridle'. What appears to be the most relevant biblical text, 1Kings 7.24 has a bewildering variety of translations for what appear to be these objects, 'knops' (AV), 'panels' (NRSV), 'gourds' (NEB) and huposterigmata ('underprops') in an edition of the Septuagint that I looked at.

[Editorial Note 128] This is emended to huperdedometo in the Loeb text. Is this a mistake in transcription or did Newton have a different reading?

[Editorial Note 129] This can be filled out from Babson 434, f 16r-17r: Intelligit ergo Iosephus per angulos atrij non nudos porticuum concursus sed ædificia quædam in concursibus. 'Therefore what Josephus means by the corners of the court is not simply the points where the cloisters met but certain buildings at those points.'

[Editorial Note 130] Titus had not yet become emperor at the time of the siege of Jerusalem (70 AD). He was emperor only from 79-81. But Imperator might be intended to mean 'General' here.

[Editorial Note 131] Josephus, Jewish War 6.192.

[Editorial Note 132] More familiarly known from the Authorized Version as 'Solomon's porch'.